We have a very simple but powerful and meaningful purpose and intention. Our primary goals are to support the protection of the rainforest and other wilderness and natural areas, To document and rescue vanishing Indigenous plant lore and create a new ethnobotany that seeks to strengthen the bridge of knowledge transmission among elders and youth, To protect Indigenous medicinal plant knowledge and support traditional healers, assist Indigenous people’s communities in their struggle for cultural and territorial autonomy, To enact programs which encourage
The OSA Foundation has worked extensively in Ecuador since 1990 on projects among indigenous ethnic minorities. Among many other successful projects, we have helped to create biological reserves, decolonized and demarcated indigenous territories, and have supported the revival of cultural values that strengthen community participation in rainforest conservation and sustainable resource management. In the year 2000 Jonathon Miller Weisberger, the foundation’s director, moved to Costa Rica and founded Guaria de Osa – Rainforest Ocean Discovery Centre
The Council for Cultural and Biological Diversity, in Spanish known as Fundacion OSA, formerly Grupo Osanimi, is a collaborative effort among a small but growing group of concerned and aware individuals in Costa Rica, Ecuador and the United States in the fields of fundraising and proactively endorsing rainforest and wildlife conservation and cultural heritage revivification projects among Indigenous minorities and rural peoples’ communities. The work supports the struggle for cultural and territorial autonomy through land purchase programs and in the past via demarcation and decolonization programs.