Our History

Finca Loma Linda and the Agua Buena community

In the early 1950s the south frontier of Costa Rica was opened to settlement. This area, known as the Coto Brus Valley, spanned the mountainous region between the Pacific slope of the Talamanca Mountain Range and the lower Pacific flood planes on the southeastern border with Panama. A largely unexplored wilderness, this landscape was covered by dense, montane tropical forest.

Immigrants from diverse regions and circumstances came to the newly opened frontier. In 1954 the Cole family, like many others, came to Coto Brus in search of land and a better way of life. They purchased the 54-hectare section of land in a remote area near the border with Panama that eventually became Finca Loma Linda. Opening up the frontier involved many things, the first of which was to clear the rain forest to make room for subsistence farming and later cattle pastures and coffee. Conditions on the frontier were difficult and uncertain. Initially, it was accessible only by foot or on horseback; supplies were limited and medical help was seldom available.

Gradually, the landscape was transformed by the wave of new occupants. The vast forest fell back, giving way to the axe and machete. What had once been a wilderness became a picturesque mosaic of coffee fields, pastures, homes, and towns. The settlers became a rural community of farmers. Only later the significance of these dramatic changes to the landscape and natural systems become apparent.

Today Coto Brus is an interwoven fabric of pastures, coffee plantations, and small forest fragments clinging to the steep hillsides. Although the frontier is gone, the challenges of managing the land and its resources have only begun. In many places, the steep slopes have become eroded. The modern,intensive methods of agriculture that have replaced traditional crops and require high inputs of agrochemicals that cause toxicity in the environment and health problems. Unprotected waterways are polluted by erosion and agricultural runoff. Small forests that are the last holdouts of the once abundant wildlife suffer the effects of isolation, inbreeding, and extractive practices.More recently, a crash in the global coffee economy has caused an economic crisis in the region, impoverishing many small-scale farmers and causing extensive out-migration, land abandonment, and an urgent need for new livelihood options.

Local efforts are underway to develop more environmentally friendly practices and to restore and reforest parts of the Agua Buena watershed. A local farmer's cooperative, Coope Pueblos, is working towards developing alternative markets for local products, and shifting to organic/sustainable coffee production. The community is attempting to develop infrastructure for ecotourism. Women's groups are looking for ways to diversify their livelihoods by producing crafts, clothing, and other home industries. Farmers in the Agua Buena areas are helping scientists to carry out research on methods of restoring forest to degraded lands.

For the past 25 years, Finca Loma Linda has worked with the community to develop methods of sustainable agriculture and to support programs for conservation, development, and education.