Ecotopia's Prism: Political Biogeography and Costa Rica's Ecology, Economy, and Equity

Project Overview

Over the past five years Dr. Troy Abel has collaborated with Western students, faculty, and Costa Rican’s conserving tropical rainforests. The Rainforest Immersion & Conservation Action Program (RICA) studies ecological citizenship and political biogeography via immersion in some of the most biologically intense places on the planet. The overriding philosophy of Dr. Abel's work has been that while Costa Rica’s world renowned system of protected areas and national parks is where the nation’s conservation of biodiversity began, it will be finished, for the good or the bad, outside of them. In the latest season of field work, Dr. Abel and Graduate Teaching Assistant Ben Kane presented a prototype interactive web map to document flora and fauna research and results in Carara National Park. To read more about Dr. Abel's experiences in Costa Rica, see Five Seasons in Ecotopia, available through our local, independent bookseller Village Books.