PRO COSARA has started a new Project financed by the Fund for the Conservation of Tropical Forests

Under accord Nº 1/2.009 signed between the Association Pro Cordillera San Rafael and the Fund for the Conservation of Tropical Forests a project was started and designated "Preservation of the Natural Resources of the San Rafael Reserve and its Environment"; with three components that include monitoring the Reserve, Environmental Education, and Agroforestry and diversification with farming communities.
The specialists working for the project have initiated their activities with plenty of enthusiasm and energy, above all with the pledge to work hard and maintain good management systems of the various activities planned for the duration of the project.

The San Rafael Reserve continues to be in danger due to the numerous ecological crimes that occur in it. The illegal logging and extraction of wood products is the most serious problem of all, as it occurs in all of the zones of the Reserve that border rural farming communities.

Through the establishment of Forest Guards, PRO COSARA continues to carry out monitoring of the protected area. The monitoring is carried out jointly with the help of Park Guards of the Secretary of the Environment and Forest Guards of the NGO Guyra Paraguay, with the objective of detecting the most frequent ecological crimes.
The monitoring is reinforced with the help of flyovers in an ultra-light airplane that unfortunately were not done as frequently as planned due to rain and poor weather conditions. Although the weather did not permit more, 8 flyovers were carried out in which the most vulnerable areas were spotted and identified. The information gathered from the flights was presented to the head of Park Guards from Secretary of the Environment.

Adequate conservation of the existing forest depends on investing in educational activities to facilitate a better understanding of the relationships between natural ecosystems and the community. As such, the future of the San Rafael Reserve depends on the environmental education and sensitization that we offer today to boys and girls living near the Reserve.

In 8 elementary schools in the districts of Alto Verá and Itapúa Poty, an ecological competition was carried out with the participation of students from 4-6 grades. Each institution selected their project, of which themes of tree planting, creation and placing of garbage cans, medicinal plant production, creation of gardens and nurseries were chosen.
Each school was evaluated on a monthly basis with PRO COSARA in charge of monitoring the advancement of each project. At the end of the school year, a final evaluation was done to identify the winning school. All of the schools developed their projects with lots of enthusiasm. The schools that won the most points were: San Francisco de Asís of Carumbey, and Fulgencio Yegros of Libertad del Sur. The prize that the winning schools received was the opportunity to participate in an integrity camp that was held at PRO COSARA headquarters on the 12th and 13th of December of 2009.

Various community nurseries have been created in the community Libertad del Sur. It is expected that they will serve as model nurseries and additional family nurseries will be created as well. The nurseries are currently in construction, as water tanks and connections for irrigation are installed.
The goal of these nurseries the production of enough seedlings and trees to be commercialized and sold.

80,000 tree seedlings have been planted across 80 hectares of land on various family farms in Libertad del Sur. Priority areas for reforestation included watersheds, specifically around Pirapo creek. The results are noticeable as the farmers continue to monitor the reforested areas for tree survival and growth.

In a mark of institutional strengthening, PRO COSARA has opened its new administrative office at the headquarters of FUCAI in Hohenau, Itapua. The motive for creating this office is to further develop the administrative management of Pro Cosara as well as to create infrastructure and greater access to technology. Additionally, the new location of the administrative office creates more opportunities for the people of Colonias Unidas to learn about and have greater access to information on the San Rafael Reserve.