Rainforest of the Austrians

About us

The Association Rainforest of the Austrians, founded in 1991, is dedicated to saving the Esquinas rainforest by buying and donating land to the Republic of Costa Rica.

In 1991, the Esquinas forest in southern Costa Rica, one of the last unprotected lowland tropical rainforests on the Pacific coast of Central America, was declared a national park by presidential decree. However, since all land was in private hands, it could only be cataloged as a "paper park" until it was owned by the Costa Rican national park service. Exploitation permits to use these lush forests had been issued before the park declaration and deforestation continued, inflicting irreversible damages upon the Esquinas Forest and jeopardizing the objectives of the decree.

Later that year, Michael Schnitzler, a well-known classical violinist from Vienna and part-time resident of Costa Rica, founded a non-profit organization called "Regenwald der Österreicher" ("Rainforest of the Austrians") to raise funds to buy property in the Esquinas Forest. 

By 2006, over 15,000 mostly Austrian individuals had donated about EUR 2,000,000, enabling the purchase of about 34,7 square kilometers of rainforest.

Donations of more than 3 million dollars have been used to purchase properties that are then integrated into Piedras Blancas National Park.

Aside from land purchase, the Austrian NGO helps protect the forest by hiring guards, has founded a research station and an ecotourism project and is actively involved in reforestation with the goal of creating biological corridors between isolated patches of rainforest.