PLANT TREES

Overview

Paso Pacifico works to restore and conserve the natural ecosystems along Central America’s Pacific slope thereby ensuring the connectivity and function of wildlife habitat.

Mission

Mission
Paso Pacífico's mission is to restore and conserve the natural ecosystems along Central America’s Pacific slope thereby ensuring the connectivity and function of wildlife habitat.

Organizational Values
In working towards its mission, the organization’s core values include:
- socially and economically sustainable communities,
- strong relationships with private landowners and the private sector, and
- the conservation of ecosystem-level processes and interactions.

Programs

1. Technical Assistance: The goals of this program area are to enable landowners to become effective stewards of their land, and ultimately to conserve and restore Central America’s pacific slope ecosystems. To achieve this Paso Pacifico forms partnerships with landowners who have a strong interest in sustainable land management. By providing landowners with technical expertise and advice, Paso Pacífico actively supports them in protecting biodiversity.

2. Outreach and Education: This is our insurance policy for conservation. By educating young people about the importance of their forests and its wildlife, we ensure that the conservation corridors we build now will be protected into the future. Programs of Paso Pacifico will heighten the public’s awareness of the value of Central America’s natural resources and the concept that human involvement in the landscape can coincide with a healthy environment. The vision of a pacific passage (paso pacifico) will be spread as a comprehensive strategy for preserving the biodiversity of Central America.

3. Conservation Science: Paso Pacífico depends on the latest conservation science to inform its decision-making and to help endangered plants and wildlife avoid extinction. The goals of each project will be to conserve or restore natural resources at the site, advance knowledge of applied conservation and restoration science, and develop practical models that can be replicated at other sites throughout Central America. Collaborative partnerships with Nicaraguan universities and international researchers are a major component of this program.

4. Conservation Finance: Ecosystem conservation and forest restoration are very costly, requiring a sustained effort over the long-term. Landowners are often unable to make conservation a viable land use activity given the costs. The goal of this program area will be to ensure that landowners gain access to funding to assist them in conserving their natural resources and to offset opportunity costs. To support landowners, Paso Pacifico will identify innovative methods for financing private lands conservation including alternative agriculture, payments for ecosystem services, direct payments for conservation and eco-tourism.

5. Conservation Lands: In order to connect forest areas across the landscape, there must be protected lands. The goal of this program area is to place ecologically valuable properties in ownership of landowners that will conserve and or restore them. Biodiversity lands will be placed into the hands of investors or organizations with a demonstrated conservation ethic and commitment. We will also work to ensure the long-term protection of these lands through the creation of land trusts, protected areas, or other legal mechanisms.