Green travel guide

Costa Rica Nature Reserves and Wildlife Corridors: Who Protects Them

Beyond its national parks, Costa Rica protects forest through private reserves like the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and the Children's Eternal Rainforest, and through biological corridors that link habitat across farms and villages. Many private reserves welcome visitors on marked trails, while corridors are landscapes of private land, not places to tour.

By Pura-Verde.com Editors · Published October 30, 2026 · Last checked October 30, 2026

Best for

Hikers and nature lovers who want to see how private and community conservation works beyond the national parks.

Where

Monteverde (Cloud Forest Reserve, Children's Eternal Rainforest), the Nicoya Peninsula (Karen Mogensen Reserve, Cabo Blanco), Dominical (Hacienda Barú) and Sarapiquí (Tirimbina).

Recognition

In June 2026 the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve became Costa Rica's first protected area on the IUCN Green List.

Size

The Children's Eternal Rainforest covers about 22,600 hectares, Costa Rica's largest private reserve.

Good to know

Corridors cross private farms and homes; visit only official reserve entrances and trails.

Ask before you go

Whether a guide or booking is needed, and what your ticket pays for.

Picture a rainforest that exists because schoolchildren in Sweden raised money for it. A reserve on the Nicoya Peninsula named for a woman who fought to keep the coast wild long before tourism arrived. And a cloud forest whose success is now measured not just in quetzal sightings, but in how well it's run.

Costa Rica's national parks get the fame. What most visitors never see is the web of private reserves, community groups, researchers, farmers and local rangers that stretches around and between them. The forest isn't one unbroken green patch. It has edges, roads, ranches, rivers, villages and owners who decide what happens to their land. A good conservation trip introduces you to those people, not just the name on the sign.

Monteverde: a cloud forest reserve with world recognition

On June 26, 2026, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve became the first protected area in Costa Rica listed on the IUCN Green List, an international standard for well-managed protected areas. The IUCN's July 2026 announcement credited its management, science, environmental education and work with the local community, and called it one of the first private reserves in the world to be recognized.

The reserve is run by the Centro Científico Tropical (Tropical Science Center), founded in 1962 as Costa Rica's first environmental nonprofit. Created in 1972 as the country's first private biological reserve, it now protects more than 4,100 hectares. Executive director Mario Roa called it "a living laboratory" in the IUCN's October 2026 Green List release, pointing to decades of research, monitoring and education.

This is a different kind of recognition from the CST sustainability certification that hotels and tour operators earn. It's about how a protected area is managed and what it achieves.

The story started long before anyone searched for quetzals on a phone. A 2017 business history in Enterprise and Society describes how American Quakers who settled in Monteverde in 1951 set aside about 500 hectares of cloud forest to protect their water supply. In 1972, visiting graduate student George Powell persuaded the Tropical Science Center to raise money to buy that land and neighboring forest threatened by logging and squatters.

That's a pattern you'll see again and again in Costa Rica. Many reserves began with one or two determined people. They lasted because others built institutions, funding, science and a working relationship with the neighbors.

The Children's Eternal Rainforest: how a classroom saved a forest

The Children's Eternal Rainforest is a good answer to anyone who thinks conservation has to start with billionaires or governments. According to the Monteverde Conservation League's history, American biologist Sharon Kinsman, who had worked in Monteverde, spoke at a school in Sweden in 1987. Teacher Eha Kern's students raised money to buy 6 hectares of rainforest. Eha and her husband Bernd Kern then founded Barnens Regnskog, a Swedish nonprofit that raised money for the league's land purchases. Children and adults in 44 countries eventually joined in.

The point isn't that kids can replace professional conservation managers. It's that a child's sense of urgency helped create something local professionals could protect for generations.

Today the reserve covers about 22,600 hectares across seven life zones, making it Costa Rica's largest private reserve. The league has a staff of more than 30, has planted more than 1.6 million trees from a nursery of 20 native species, and runs visitor areas at Bajo del Tigre, San Gerardo and Pocosol. Its 2024 to 2025 board is led by president Emily Hollenbeck.

Hiking one trail at Bajo del Tigre shows you a sliver of a much bigger network of land, water, wildlife and community decisions.

The Nicoya Peninsula: Cabo Blanco and the Karen Mogensen Reserve

On the southern Nicoya Peninsula, the story leads to Karen Mogensen and Olof "Nicolás" Wessberg, a Scandinavian couple who settled near Montezuma in 1955. At a time when clearing land was seen as progress, they campaigned to protect the forest at Cabo Blanco, which became an absolute nature reserve in 1963, before Costa Rica had a national park system. Wessberg was killed in 1975 while campaigning to protect the Osa Peninsula. Karen died in 1994.

The Karen Mogensen Reserve, 1,005 hectares in the heart of the peninsula, honors her. It's owned and managed by ASEPALECO, the ecological association of Paquera, Lepanto and Cóbano, founded in 1991 and caring for the reserve since 1996. Its work covers forest and water protection, environmental education, fire prevention, scientific research and land purchases to expand the reserve.

The reserve's site points to an interview with brothers who once hunted and are now guardians of the forest. That's conservation at a human scale. Attitudes change one person at a time, and former hunters can explain what no map can: how a forest becomes worth protecting to the people who know it best.

To visit, contact ASEPALECO first. The protected watershed isn't open for wandering onto private land, and the association's office isn't at the trailhead.

Why wildlife corridors matter

A jaguar, tapir, monkey or migrating bird doesn't care where a park ends and a farm begins. It does notice barriers: open pasture, highways, fences, lone trees and long gaps between food sources. Two healthy reserves can still fail their wildlife if animals can't move between them.

Biological corridors aim to keep or restore those paths. They can include forest patches on private land, strips of trees along rivers, shade-grown crops, native hedgerows and canopy links across towns. Some help big mammals travel; others support pollinators, clean rivers or migrating birds. In 2026, landowners in Nosara set up a voluntary corridor from the mountains to the sea, and lawmakers advanced a wildlife crossings bill to make roads safer for animals.

Osa and Coto Brus: farmers rebuilding the connections

In southern Costa Rica, Osa Conservation and Rare are working with farmers on a corridor to link Corcovado National Park with La Amistad International Park. Rodrigo De Sousa, Osa Conservation's tropical forests program manager, told Rare in August 2026 that camera traps and landscape mapping helped pick the priority areas. The plan includes silvopasture, which mixes trees, forage and livestock.

The same report introduces Vivian, who's planting native fruit trees on her farm in Hamacas, Coto Brus, and Uriel, a young rancher from Paraíso Changüina who sees replanting as protection against landslides. Ana Barajas, the Rare social scientist managing the partnership, studies why farmers join and what holds them back. "No two farms are exactly alike," she said. The farmers are named only by first name in the source, and their farms are homes, not tourist stops.

The Osa is also where camera traps keep turning up big cats, like the jaguar Encanto, and where one community made a film about living with pumas and tapirs.

National parks, private reserves and corridors: what's the difference?

• National parks are state-protected areas managed by SINAC, Costa Rica's national system of conservation areas.
• Private reserves are land set aside for conservation by an owner or nonprofit. Some offer trails, lodging, research or tours; others don't take visitors at all.
• Biological corridors are landscape-scale plans to connect habitat. They can include farms, villages, roads and many properties, so they aren't a single spot on a map.

These overlap. A private reserve can border a national park, a working farm can be key corridor habitat and a hotel can own forest. A protected watershed can supply water to towns whose residents never walk its trails. Protected river corridors are under pressure too, as SINAC's investigation of a dock on the Río Tárcoles shows.

Costa Rica also runs a Payment for Environmental Services program through FONAFIFO. Under the Forestry Law, it pays owners of forest and forest plantations for services like carbon storage, water and biodiversity protection, and scenic beauty. It isn't a blanket payment for planting any tree or owning empty land; requirements are specific, so check with the agency.

Nature reserves you can visit in Costa Rica

• Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve: managed trails and guided walks, with booking through the reserve. Plan on a long, winding drive up from San José.
• Children's Eternal Rainforest: Bajo del Tigre is closest to Santa Elena town; San Gerardo and Pocosol are more remote, so plan ahead.
• Karen Mogensen Reserve: remote and quiet, reached through ASEPALECO's arrangements from the Nicoya Peninsula side.
• Hacienda Barú near Dominical: an eco-lodge surrounded by the Barú National Wildlife Refuge, about 330 hectares of rainforest, mangroves and beach, with guided nature tours.
• Tirimbina in La Virgen de Sarapiquí: a reserve with about 7 km of trails, hanging bridges, a lodge and free environmental education for local communities.

Nearby, La Selva Biological Station in Sarapiquí, run by the Organization for Tropical Studies, offers research-led guided walks. Its site was under maintenance when we checked, so contact the station before you go.

Each of these has different access rules. Some need a guide or booking, and research areas may stay closed. Expect rain in the cloud forest year-round, and pack layers for Monteverde's cool, windy evenings. Find more on our map under reserves and national parks.

How to help protect Costa Rica's forests

Tickets, donations and memberships matter, but long-term protection also depends on monitoring, secure land titles, ranger patrols, local jobs and community support. Ask a reserve what it needs most right now. Sometimes the biggest challenge isn't buying more land. It's paying a field team, fixing a bridge, preventing fires or protecting a stream that flows in from an unprotected farm. Our guide to reforestation in Costa Rica explains how native trees help rebuild corridors, and our guide to regenerative and organic farms shows how farms can be part of the solution.

A good reserve visit doesn't end with "I saw a quetzal." It ends with you wondering whose work made that sighting possible, and how the land around the reserve can stay alive for the next generation of birds.

Frequently asked questions

What is a biological corridor in Costa Rica?

It's a network of forest patches, riverbanks, farms and other land that connects protected areas so wildlife can move between them. Corridors usually cross many private properties.

What is the largest private nature reserve in Costa Rica?

The Children's Eternal Rainforest in the Monteverde region, about 22,600 hectares, managed by the Monteverde Conservation League.

Can you visit private nature reserves in Costa Rica?

Many welcome visitors on marked trails or guided tours, including the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, the Children's Eternal Rainforest and Tirimbina. Others are closed to the public, so check before you go.

What is the difference between a national park and a private reserve in Costa Rica?

National parks are owned and managed by the state through SINAC. Private reserves are owned and managed by individuals, nonprofits or businesses, each with its own visitor rules.

What is Costa Rica's first protected area?

Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve on the southern Nicoya Peninsula, created in 1963 after a campaign by Karen Mogensen and Olof Nicolás Wessberg.

Which Costa Rica reserve is on the IUCN Green List?

The Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve, listed in June 2026 as Costa Rica's first protected area on the IUCN Green List.

Sources

1. IUCN: Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde ingresa a la Lista Verde (July 2026)
2. IUCN: New IUCN Green List sites revealed (October 23, 2026)
3. Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve: What We Do
4. Enterprise and Society (Cambridge): Creating Ecotourism in Costa Rica, 1970 to 2000 (Jones and Spadafora, 2017)
5. Monteverde Conservation League: History
6. Monteverde Conservation League: Who We Are
7. Monteverde Conservation League: Our Team
8. Karen Mogensen Reserve: About Us
9. ASEPALECO: About
10. Wikipedia: Cabo Blanco Absolute Natural Reserve
11. Rare: The future of Costa Rica's wildlife corridors runs through its farms (August 3, 2026)
12. Osa Conservation: Meet the Team
13. FONAFIFO: Pago de Servicios Ambientales
14. Hacienda Barú: official site
15. Tirimbina: official site

We checked these pages when we last updated this guide. We didn't interview the people named; their roles and words come from the sources above.