ESS Chorotega: mountain-to-ocean regeneration in Costa Rica's Blue Zone

ESS Chorotega Life Zone: Restoring Costa Rica's Blue Zone Through Community-Led Regeneration

Costa Rica's Blue Zone is globally recognized for longevity and well-being, yet many rural communities within this landscape face growing environmental and social challenges. Deforestation, habitat fragmentation, climate change, youth migration, and limited economic opportunities threaten both biodiversity and community resilience.

Fundación BoaPaz created the ESS Chorotega Life Zone to address these interconnected challenges through a community-led regenerative development model that links ecosystem restoration, education, entrepreneurship, cultural heritage, and sustainable livelihoods.

Our work focuses on a territory connecting the Matambú Indigenous Territory, the forests of El Toledo, rural communities in Hojancha, and the coastal ecosystems of Puerto Carrillo. Together, these areas form a mountain-to-ocean corridor rich in biodiversity, culture, and restoration potential.

Our Story

The ESS Chorotega Life Zone was not born from a corporate strategy or a top-down development plan. It emerged from the lived experiences of its co-founders, a young couple from rural Costa Rica who experienced firsthand the challenges faced by many communities across the region.

Growing up, we witnessed limited economic opportunities, youth migration, social inequality, and the gradual loss of connection between people and nature. Like many families in rural territories, we understood what it means to pursue education and opportunities while watching talented young people leave their communities in search of a future elsewhere.

At the same time, we also experienced the extraordinary strengths of our territory: strong community bonds, indigenous heritage, biodiversity, volunteerism, and the culture of well-being that has made Costa Rica's Blue Zone internationally recognized.

These experiences shaped a simple conviction: conservation cannot succeed without community well-being, and economic development cannot be sustainable without healthy ecosystems.

Rather than choosing between people and nature, we decided to create a model where both can thrive together.

What started as volunteer initiatives and local community projects has evolved into a growing territorial ecosystem that connects indigenous communities, youth, women, entrepreneurs, local governments, universities, volunteers, and international partners around a shared vision of regeneration.

What We Are Doing

The ESS Chorotega Life Zone operates through four interconnected components:

1. Education, Entrepreneurship and Responsible Consumption Training children, youth and adults through environmental education, leadership development, digital skills, entrepreneurship, and responsible consumption initiatives.

2. SMART Territories and the SMART Route Connecting communities through technology, sustainable tourism, impact visibility, and a mountain-to-ocean territorial corridor that links restoration, culture, entrepreneurship, and conservation.

3. Impact Investment Creating pathways for community projects and local enterprises to access grants, blended finance, and impact investment that support long-term sustainability.

4. Identity, Culture, Sport and Regenerative Territory Strengthening indigenous heritage, volunteerism, biodiversity conservation, youth engagement, and community well-being through cultural and territorial initiatives.

Environmental and Community Impact

Our restoration efforts focus on biodiversity protection, assisted natural regeneration, ecosystem connectivity, environmental education, and community stewardship.

The territory currently includes areas surrounding the Matambú Indigenous Territory, Reserva El Toledo, Hojancha, Monte Romo, Estrada, and Puerto Carrillo, creating a landscape where conservation, sustainable livelihoods, and community development reinforce one another.

Through partnerships with local governments, universities, indigenous organizations, community groups, and entrepreneurs, we are building a model that demonstrates how ecological restoration can generate social and economic resilience.

How Funding Will Be Used

Funding from the RestorLife Awards would support:

• Expansion of restoration and conservation activities.
• Biodiversity monitoring and impact measurement.
• Environmental education and youth leadership programs.
• Indigenous and community participation.
• Development of the SMART Route as a regenerative territorial platform.
• Strengthening local enterprises connected to conservation outcomes.
• Scaling community-led restoration across the broader Blue Zone landscape.

Our Vision

We believe rural territories can become living laboratories for regeneration.

Our vision is to restore ecosystems while creating opportunities that allow future generations to remain in their communities, protect their natural heritage, celebrate their cultural identity, and build prosperous futures.

For us, restoration is not only about recovering forests and biodiversity. It is about restoring the relationship between people, culture, and the landscapes that sustain life.