Finca Sonador
Coordinates: 9 ° 16 ′ N , 83 ° 30 ′ W
The Finca Sonador (also known as Longo Mai ) is a settlement near San Isidro de El General in the south of Costa Rica , ( Province of Puntarenas , Canton of Osa), with approx. 400 inhabitants.
history
The Longo maï movement has its origins in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France. The first branch was founded by young people of the 68 generation in France in 1973 (“Longo maï” means something like “it may last a long time”). The focus was on communal coexistence on the basis of self-administration and agricultural self-sufficiency. In addition, various social and political projects were carried out. When numerous Nicaraguans had to flee from Anastasio Somoza's terror regime in 1979 , the cooperative decided to buy Finca Sonador in Costa Rica. The idea was to make the land available to the refugees and thereby enable them to lead an independent life.
After the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua, most of the Nicaraguans at Finca Sonador returned to their homeland. Refugee families from El Salvador and Guatemala took their place, followed by landless Costa Rican farming families (including indigenous people from the Bribri and Cabecar tribes) and a few Europeans. Today the majority of the village population is of Salvadoran origin. The village has developed into an eco-center surrounded by pineapple plantations owned by the multinational Del Monte . It is the seat of the regional environmental organization UNAPROA, which is also supported by the Austrian foreign service with the posting of social workers. Volunteers from Germany are also regularly on site for different periods of time, also within the framework of international youth voluntary services and the weltwärts program . An important factor for the well-being of the village is a project for gentle ecotourism , which has established itself there and in 2004 received the To-Do Award of the study group for tourism and development .
Roland Spendlingwimmer , founding member of Longo Mai, supervised the project from day one.
Agriculture
The cultivation includes corn, beans, yuca (cassava), bananas, platanos (plantains), cocoa, meat, milk, eggs and fruits and covers most of the domestic needs. Mainly coffee and sugar cane are produced for sale. Half of the area consists of protected primary and secondary forests - the latter are the last remaining larger rainforest areas in the lower layers of the region.
Other facilities
There are two shops, an elementary school with a kindergarten and two churches.
There is a Kolping family in the village .
Web links
- Longo Mai, Costa Rica. official website. In: sonador.info.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Finca Sonador, Longo Mai refugee cooperative in Costa Rica - prolongomai. In: prolongomai.ch. Retrieved October 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Archive Bezirksrundschau Schärding ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Interview with the social worker David Witzeneder (PDF 1.5 MB)
- ↑ TO DO 2004 Finca Esperanza Verde, Nicaragua - todo-contest.org. In: todo-contest.org. Retrieved October 20, 2019 .
