Unión de Amigos para la Protección del Ambiente

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The Unión de Amigos para la Protección del Ambiente (UNAPROA) (German Friendship Association for Environmental Protection ) is an environmental protection organization in Costa Rica with headquarters in San Isidro del General in the province of San José . The organization was founded in 1995 by the representatives of six village communities in the Brunca region after a conference on environmental protection had taken place at Finca Sonador . The goals of the organization are to promote the protection of the water catchment areas, organic agriculture and ecotourism in the region. The members are mostly farmers who cultivate small areas on the slopes of the Talamanca Mountains . UNAPROA now includes representatives of smallholder associations from thirty villages, including an indigenous village community. UNAPROA has been cooperating with the Austrian Green Education Workshop for several years .

Measures to protect the environment threatened by illegal slash and burn fights are involved in this project. Most of the time behind these crimes, which lead to erosion and drying up of watercourses, are large forest companies or large landowners. In doing so, they destroy the entire ecosystem and the basis of smallholder subsistence farming. Chemicals are often used on the nearby monocultures (pineapple and coffee plantations) of large agricultural groups, which endanger the health of agricultural workers, the soil and the groundwater.

The UNAPROA is an agency of the Austrian foreign service .

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