La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve Scenes

19 December 2005

La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve is a private park south of the more famous Children's Forest Preserve (Bosque Eterno de Los Ninos), near the town of Tigra. It is an island of natural habitat surrounded by mountainous country used for agricultural purposes, mostly for grazing cattle. The area also is used to grow tropical house plants, and ferns and foilage for the cut-flower business. This preserve provides opportunities to see a number of wildlife and native plant species in their natural habitat of the cool, humid, cloud forests, like found at Monteverde. However, this preserve is much more assessable than Monteverde by vehicle, and less crowded. A paved road takes you directly to the preverve property, while the trip to Monteverde requires hours of rough riding on poorly constructed and maintained (that is, not maintained) dirt roads.

Look at the first and second maps on my "Costa Rica Home" page to see where La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve is; look for "La Tigra" and a pink dot on the first map, and "Zona Protectora Arenal-Monteverde" and "Tigra" on the second map (south central part of the map). Basic information about the La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve cannot be found on the internet, or at least I couldn't when I looked last night.

La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve, located between San Ramon and La Fortuna consists of rolling hills, with a large portion forested, with cloud forest. Most of the cloud forest in this area has been cleared to provide grassland for the sole purpose of raising beef cattle. This type conversion of the natural vegetation has had disasterous affects on biodiversity, erosion control, and water quality. Go to United Nations University bibliographic review to read a little about cloud forests in the humid tropics and the common practice of coverting cloud forests to other uses.

Our Caravan tour took us from the Los Cabanitas Hotel in La Fortuna south to La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve, past the Children's Forest Preserve. The weather was perfect this day.

Links to other Costa Rica photo pages

Photos of the La Tigra Cloud Forest Preserve