OTS Beyond Costa Rica

The shining success of OTS as a force for tropical research, education and conservation in Costa Rica has all but completed the organization to spread their model to other continents.

Says Hartshorn, “I realized that Costa Rica, in particular, and even tropical America are way ahead of the developing countries in Africa and Asia in conservation and in education of national scientists. And I thought that what they really need is the equivalent of an OTS involved.”

As an example of the ability of OTS to spread its knowledge and expertise, he cites the OTS courses, taught in Spanish, that now attract students -- including academics, government officials and conservationists -- from throughout Latin America. Alumni from those courses now number well over a thousand.

“I see just tremendous need for that kind of training and education of the next generation of scientists in Africa and Southeast Asia,” says Hartshorn. However, he says, OTS will not seeks to establish outposts in those regions, but will collaborate with local universities and other organizations.
“We want to make a concerted effort to bring the kind of experiential science and environmental education—rigorous, field-based, hands-on, in-your-face, get-muddy -- to these other parts of the world,” he says.
For example, he cites a new initiative in which OTS will join with Kruger National Park to establish research and education programs. And in South Africa, OTS is partnering with two of the country’s premier universities, the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Capetown, to launch education programs.

In those collaborations, OTS will contribute experienced naturalists and educators to help local educators and scientists learn organizational and teaching techniques, so they can assume management of the local program.