Nature Air

During the holiday season, we seem to focus on doing good deeds on behalf of others. Throughout the year, there are people who work tirelessly and unselfishly to protect our natural environment. We often focus on their organizations and rarely get an opportunity to find out who these people are. We want to introduce you to Roberto Rodriguez, who has helped launch Coalicion Sur here in Costa Rica.

Sometimes I just stop

mystic are my roots,

they look like my feet

but quickly grow beneath

So fertile is their home

that simple trees and leaves

grow out from within

Like a mirror is my heart

the forest shines inside

suddenly it’s all clear

for a second I belong

So hard is the noise

of a city moving in

breaks my bond indeed,

they all look like me.

Roberto Rodriguez 29-Nov-2008. During NatureAir flight from Golfito to San Jose

“My adult life started when I withdrew from Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University one year short of graduation. That’s when I decided to take control of the way I live by looking at alternative ways of working and enjoying life. Such a lifestyle that depends on creativity makes a young person work in many different areas, however I never stepped to far from my main vocations.

Besides working at our family’s construction materials distribution business, I spent most of my time writing poetry. On 2004, I had a stand in the International Art Festival of Costa Rica, writing poetry live and donating all the proceeds to the San Jose Orphanage. Later, I traveled throughout Central and South America, writing poetry live for people in the street and donating the proceeds to young kids in each city.

Just weeks after such an event, I moved to the Osa Peninsula for the first time in my life. I had been in Osa many times before, but leaving was so hard that eventually I stayed. I camped out at a beach for a month or two until I got a job running a small eco-lodge, but eventually I had to move back to San Jose where I created a company that I dreamed would become the first non-profit software development corporation.

Soon, good fortune struck, I spent most of my savings on a trip to Seattle for an Adobe congress on Internet Development, where a team would build a free of cost application for North West Charity. While working on that project, I met some of the best developers in the country and eventually got a job as a consultant.

In December 2007, I moved back to Osa while still working “remotely” as a consultant, but in March I decided to step back from private consulting and devoted all my full time to developing non-profit and community projects in the OSA Peninsula, using technology and the internet. Coalicion Sur was born on June 2008, when Daniela Solano and I started to figure out ways to use the internet in Costa Rica for conservation and social development.

Our web site is widely used in Costa Rica and is the first site to incorporate civil participation and “Facebook” style functionalities to allow regular people to understand scenarios and help protect our natural resources. We are ready to translate the web site and all its functionalities into English and French, integrating Facebook and its viral network attributes into the web site. We are also planning a way to allow other organizations and communities to congregate in what we call The Coalition for Nature, and inherit our development to all environmental organizations.”

Funding is a challenge for Coalicion Sur and they are continually reassessing how to use their limited resources and exploring new opportunities. Please contact Roberto if you would like more information: Roberto@coalicionsur.org