Nature Reserve Protection
With an estate of more than 1,000 acres, we have a lot of land to protect and we take our stewardship responsibilities seriously. We have several types of habitats that we care for: cloud forest; shade coffee plantation, pastureland, and inhabited areas.
Cloud Forest
We monitor and patrol our cloud forest to prevent hunting, logging, burning and garbage dumping. We also co-ordinate our efforts with MARENA, Nicaragua's national environmental agency, to help protect the national government's Arenal nature reserve that surrounds Selva Negra. MARENA helps us maintain the Cody trail and place displays along the trail to educate hikers about the life of the forest.
We have taken painstaking care to plan and maintain our network of hiking trails to minimize its effect on the life of the cloud forest. trash bins are located throughout the mountain trails to encourage guests to deposit their trash in convenient locations.
Shade Coffee Plantation
Our organic coffee plantation, shaded by a succession of tall trees that are native to Nicaragua, provides habitats and ecosystems that protect the borders of our cloud forest. Don't take our word for it. Here's what the United States Fish and Wildlife has to say on the subject.
"Shade coffee plantations are excellent to create buffer zones around natural reserves. These plantations provide a smooth transition between urban and natural areas. Buffer zones are critical for the protection of the ecosystems as well as endemic, native and migratory wildlife, including many endangered species."
Pastureland
Industrial beef production is a leading cause of global warming. But our approach to raising cattle is so sustainable that it has a positive carbon footprint. We move our cattle continuously from one section of pasture to the next, thus minimizing damage to the soil and helping renew the soil.
Residential Areas
The residences of Selva Negra include our guest lodges, personal housing and the employee's village. The village includes a public school, playground, sports fields, medical clinic, kitchen, family dwellings and dorms for single people. Several projects are underway that successfully buffer the residential areas from the surrounding habitats and prevent environmental damage. Examples include sustainable building practices, renewable energy sources such as solar water heaters, organic waste-water treatment and waste minimization.
Carbon Footprint
A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide (CO2) that is released into the atmosphere by an organization, event, product or person. Greenhouse gases are the major cause of worldwide global warming and climate change.
Selva Negra's cloud forest and others like it play a critical role in moderating the effects of global warming because trees and plants absorb CO2 and store it within their cells. The overall footprint of Selva Negra's nature reserve, coffee plantation and farm is so small that we remove more CO2 than we produce. On an annual basis, we remove 580 tonnes of CO2 and produce only 201.8 .
To put this into perspective; on average, Selva Negra and all the 500 people who live on it produce less carbon dioxide than ten North Americans.