Become a wildlife savior today! Join the mission to protect Costa Rica’s ecosystems, rainforests, and endagered wildlife.
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Jitka Rychnová
THERE IS LESS THAN 30 MILLION SQUARE KILOMETRES OF WILDLIFE LEFT ON EARTH, ROUGHLY A FIFTH OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
HELP US PROTECT COSTA RICA'S WILDLIFE FROM POACHING - THE UNIQUE BIODIVERSITY REQUIRES MORE THAN JUST TOURISM.
WILDERNESS TODAY International wildlife protection efforts are falling short of their goals. Yet wilderness plays a crucial role in maintaining both local and global climates and serves as an oasis for endangered species. True wilderness remains the last bastion free from human influence, agriculture and industrialization—a realm of pure freedom where nature’s harmony, perfection, and beauty still thrive. Protecting wilderness is crucial and every support and community effort counts!
Justice for Nature's main focus is on the protection of the biosphere and ecosystems in Costa Rica, a Central American country which shores are surrounded by both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is a small country, but it plays a vital ecological role in the world's ecosystem, particularly in terms of its flora and fauna. The organization's projects focus on rainforest conservation, wildlife monitoring, supporting educational programs for children in Czech and Slovak schools, anti-poaching efforts in and around Tapantí National Park, and promoting clean beaches in Santa Elena Bay, along with many other initiatives. At the beginning of this year (February/March 2025), I got the opportunity and honour to personally participate in a volunteer programme with Justice for Nature and see the great activities and efforts of the organisation first hand. As the phrase says: "What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't hurt"... to a certain extent it is true. I feel that even though the threats of global warming and the "plundering" of nature and natural resources are commonly talked about, we are confronted with reality in a very different way when we see everything with our own eyes. Years ago, I witnessed how the Amazon rainforest in Pucallpa, Peru, is being cut down on a large scale for business interests and wood resources. I have seen how nature is being plundered for mineral wealth in Potosí, Bolivia, where people are losing their lives and children their childhoods, educational opportunities because of exploitation of manual labour. Many natural lagoons located 4 000 metres above sea level are being closedand used for lithium and copper mining in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Humans keep claiming and taking more and more. This really opened my eyes in Costa Rica...
In both parts of the volunteer program in Costa Rica (Green Life, Blue Life) it was possible to see how people caused irreversible damage to nature. A common part of the program is helping to map poaching activity, where wild animals (rhinos, tapirs, ocelots and many other) are hunted in the depths of the rainforest as a curiosity for the tables of pampered tourists in restaurants. The beaches are littered with plastic and garbage from nearby ports. These plastics and microplastics then enter the bodies of fish, large and small, as well as the oceans, polluting their biodiversity and natural ecosystems. In just a few hours of collecting on one beach we collected 122kg of waste with 8 people. During our mapping of the poaching activities, we lost 3 photo traps, but at the same time captured the faces of the poachers involved in the illegal activities.... All of these activities require a great deal of time, energy and commitment, and therefore we need to support the programs activities financially or by volunteering and donating our time. Personally, I see it as a necessity to help and support the protection of natural resources and their preservation or restoration.
Why Costa Rica? Although it is a relatively small country, it is important because of the presence and reproduction of whales that come here from the Pacific coasts of California and Chile. They are only here for a certain time of the year for reproduction. Unfortunately, given the current situation, where the national policies of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Japan and Norway support whaling, it is extremely important to support Costa Rica in particular, so that the whales continue to have warm and safe waters in which they can live and thrive.
"Costa Rica's wildlife is a treasure, but few people connect this richness with the dangers posed by poaching, illegal fishing, logging and an environmentally weak president and his political clique. Costa Rica's green emerald is under threat and the ocean is hardly protected at all."
said Milan Jeglik of Justice for Nature
JOIN THE CHALLENGE. Are you in? Every individual can help, let's support nature, which gives to us all the time and without its existence we cannot function. We are part of it. Learn more about the organization itself here: JUSTICE FOR NATURE: NGO PROTECTS WILDLIFE AND ECOSYSTEMS
We are part of the global wildlife conservation movement and our work has a national and international reach. Our energy is in anti-poaching activities, monitoring and protection of critically endangered species and education. But we couldn't do it without the facilities and people around us. Your donations will help us to ensure the running and long-term functioning of our project activities, including regular and unavoidable costs, web hosting, domain and more. Our organization does not take donations, so we are fully dependent on public support. Thanks to you we are able to develop. Thank you.
COSTA RICA
In 2021, we purchased 155.9 hectares of montane mist forest in Costa Rica's Talamanca Cordillera, built a volunteer, education and ecotourism center and launched the Eye of the Jaguarmonitoring program, which also works with several national parks in La Amistad, Tapanti, La Cangreja, Santa Rosa and Palo Verde.
In 2023, we opened the Blue Life Ocean Center in Santa Elena Bay in Cuajinicquil, where we launched the unique Eye of the Oceanmonitoring program, which monitors marine mammals in the IMMA longfin humpback whale breeding zone in Santa Elena Bay, starting in August 2023. Newly, we will be involved in monitoring rays and sharks, including protecting them from illegal fishing in protected areas.
CZECH REPUBLIC
In 2020, we launched the Citizens' Patrols against Poisons in the Landscape in the Czech Republic, which we reorganised into the PEK - Prevention of Environmental Crime project in 2023. Our PEK outreach team has a nationwide scope and we focus on crimes committed against the environment and wildlife such as poisoning animals, poaching, baiting with banned meat baits, trapping animals in banned traps or abusing animals caught in hunting pots, and suspected illegal breeding of wildlife species and their abuse in captivity. Our focus is mainly on small and large carnivores and birds of prey. Our goal is to educate citizens about environmental crime prevention as well as direct field action by the PEK's field trip team. We intend to build a communication bridge between citizens and the responsible authorities in the field of environmental protection in the Czech Republic.
THE EYE OF THE EARTH
A unique international monitoring project, Eye of the Earth, was established in 2019, building on Eye of the Tiger, which has existed in Sumatra since 2014. Eye of the Earth has individual continental monitoring programs. Monitoring is currently taking place in the Czech Republic and especially in Costa Rica. We have previously operated in Asia - Eye of the Tiger I and II (Indonesia 2014-2025, Nepal 2023-2024), in Europe - Eye of the Bear (Slovakia 2019-2023) and Eye of the Wolf (Czech Republic from 2023) and in Central America - Eye of the Jaguar (Costa Rica, from 2021). All data are used to promote conservation and critically endangered species, national parks, to detect illegal activities and also for educational purposes within the framework of the project The Richest Ecosystems on Planet Earth. The Eye of the Earth is expected to become the basis for the creation of an international educational programme, Eye of the Earth.
GREEN PATROL IN COSTA RICA
From 2021, we are fully engaged in the protection of rainforests and critically endangered species in Costa Rica. We work with national parks and their rangers. We specialize in monitoring American jaguars in collaboration with biologists and detecting illegal activities inside and outside protected areas, with a focus on poaching and logging. Our goal is direct on-the-ground protection of wildlife from poaching.
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CONCLUSION
Anyone who gets involved in supporting Justice for Nature projects is signing up for an extraordinary collaboration to protect the environment, wildlife in the rainforest and ocean environments, including the critically endangered species that live there. The backbone of our projects is direct on-the-ground conservation of nature and wildlife, but also creating awareness among local people and educating children and youth.
