Kek öl ldi Iro Soum at the Bribri Indigenous Territory

A great way to explore the intimate human connection to the natural world is by interacting and learning from indigenous people.  An important part of their culture is their relationship to nature and their land.  This week I visited the Bribri Indigenous Territory on the Southeastern coast of Costa Rica not far from the Panama border.  In Costa Rica, indigenous people represent less than 2% of the total population.  This community has established a research project for the reproduction of the green iguana. They have also built a bird migration (Keköldi in the Bribri language) observation deck to view several migrating species of raptors and enable researchers to conduct research.  The tour was an example of rural tourism based initiatives run by community associations that own private ecological reserves throughout the country.