La Mariposa

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La Mariposa Sustainability Actions

Local employment and sourcing

We create as much sustainable local employment as possible. Except for Paulette (semi-retired) and the occasional intern, every aspect of La Mariposa is staffed and managed by local people, trained by us over the years. We also buy as little as possible in supermarkets and purchase instead from local producers supplies from fruit to building materials. We consciously minimize buying imported goods.

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Native trees and reserves

We increasingly emphasize environmental projects and have, for example, planted some 30.000 native trees over the past few years and created two nature reserves. Plus we have our rescued dogs, cats, monkeys, parrots, horses.

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Solar and water systems

Both the hotel and the study center incorporate solar power, solar heated hot water, rain water collection, grey water recycling, organic gardening among other features. We plant trees where ever possible on our land, both rare forest trees and fruit trees for wildlife.

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Eco-building materials

The result was a very beautiful and sustainable building at what is now the Group Study Centre (aka Piscacho) made from a variety of locally available materials including recycled tires, straw (left from the local rice harvest), bamboo, thatch and volcanic rock. This has been so successful that we are continuing to refine our techniques, using the same basic methods in all our new building.

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Eco-cookers and water projects

Working with Coci-Nica, we have donated over 500 eco-cookers to the poorest families in the community. A project worker was employed to do follow up visits to resolve any problems. During the dry season, we buy tankers of water wich then deliver it into barrels for the poorest families. We have developed a partial local solution which we tried first in La Mariposa itself. We pass the soapy water through a channel where volcanic sand and rock filters out the soap.

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