On Saturday November 12, thirteen young people from Coto Brus received completion certificates for their participation in the Naturalist Guides Training Course, developed at Las Cruces Biological Station and sponsored by the Embassy of Switzerland in Costa Rica.

The ceremonies began with a coffee tour, held at Finca Lila. Zak Zahawi, Las Cruces Station Director, Ariadna Sánchez, Head of the Outreach and Environmental Education Program in Las Cruces, and Andrea Montero, Head of Education, along with representatives of the Embassy of Switzerland in Costa Rica, joined the group. The tour was led by one of the graduates, Henry Barrantes of Desafíos Tours, who said the course has provided the tools to perform his work.

The graduation ceremony was held at Las Cruces and the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Swiss Embassy, Urs Broennimann, provided the participants with an opportunity to assess the course. Comments were very positive and the participants were full of immense gratitude.

During the course, participants were encouraged to expand and deepen their knowledge. The course gave them the educational tools they needed to improve their work as naturalist guides. To complement this training, each participant received a graduation gift, which included a kit with various basic tools needed for their work, such as a Swiss Army knife and flashlight.

The ceremonies ended with a festive lunch for the participants, teachers, OTS representatives and Swiss Embassy representatives in the dining room of Las Cruces.    

In early December, OTS participated in the IX Community-Based Rural Tourism Fair - Huellas Ticas (Costa Rican Traces), organized by CANTURURAL, ICT and CONAPACI.

The event provided an opportunity to promote the work of OTS and our public programs. During the weekend-long event, we provided information to the general public about our stations, BioCursos and our Corporate Volunteer programs. The OTS booth was quite popular, and we added over 150 new people to our list of friends. 

The event took place at the National Center for the Arts and Science and featured performances of traditional Costa Rican dances and the popular suin criollo (Costa Rican swing dancing).  

For the third consecutive year, the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) have worked in partnership with the main library, BINABITROP, located in the Ciudad de la Investigación, so students from the UCR Collections Training Course can develop their professional practice. The course is offered by the School of Library and Information Sciences at UCR. 

During the eight-week course, 29 students will unpack, clean, separate and electronically store a collection of more than 2,000 publications.

The OTS Head of Library, Susana Aguilar believes that the support given by students is a valuable tool for the Organization, not only from the economic point of view, but also because it provides the academic and scientific community of the country, a greater amount of information resources.

The course professor, Dr. Zulay Calvo, believes that this academic practice allows the students to interact in a real working environment, putting into practice not only the knowledge acquired in this course but throughout their entire careers. It also gives them a space to work the values of responsibility and solidarity, which will help the student population to become the best professionals possible.