PUP-University of Montana Study Abroad Course Comes to Costa Rica

Students and staff pose in front of the imposing Arenal Volcano.

Long in the Making

In December 2019 a Kansas State University professor arrived to carry out a reconnaissance of sites in Costa Rica in anticipation of setting up a study abroad trip for their park planning course that was already using the book, The Future Has Other Plans: Planning Holistically to Conserve Natural and Cultural Heritage published by Jon Kohl and Stephen McCool (Fulcrum 2016), central to PUP’s holistic planning focus.

Yet the following year the pandemic struck and the K-State experiment passed away. But PUP did not let the idea die. Teaching about protected area planning and management from a holistic perspective was completely mission compatible. So, in early 2022, PUP shopped the idea to other universities. But the one that accepted the invitation was probably the best option from the beginning considering that co-author Dr. Stephen McCool, a renowned professor in protected area management and planning, was emeritus at the University of Montana where courses had already integrated much of his work. He is also a PUP advisor emeritus. So soon the proposal landed on the desk of Dr. Jennifer Thomsen, director of the Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management Program. Already an experienced international traveler, Dr. Thomsen had PUP’s course vetted by her university and in short order recruited students. The course filled with 14 Montana undergraduates, one undergrad from Arizona State, one doctoral student from Clemson, and one non-degree graduate student at Montana.

How the Course Works

While the course is property of PUP, it must meet UM´s strict requirements in terms of academic rigor, safety, travel insurance, responsibility, and approval by an academic department. In return, students can earn four credits if they pass the course by meeting all of the requirements including background reading quizzes and a final presentation and paper. The university has a mechanism, furthermore, of transferring credits to other universities so that university students from anywhere effectively can participate for college credit. The course is recognized at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Therefore, we had two graduate students who met additional requirements, such as leading dialogues and writing a more ambitious final paper.

Students present their posters as precursor for their final papers. Each student chose a protected area somewhere in the world to apply the course lessons.

Objectives and Itinerary

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  The course instills in the students the notion that throughout human history, different kinds of protected areas have emerged in response to societal values defined through different worldviews, starting with ancient burial grounds and sacred forests up through postmodern landscape-scale areas that integrate human activity and natural systems, and beyond. The staff of two professors (Kohl and Thomsen) and a Costa Rican naturalist brought students to protected areas with various management regimes driven by values across worldviews. This criterion was integrated with a logistically feasible itinerary that crossed the country and also included three PUP member sites. Thus, the course visited, among others:

• EcoGuardianes lodge and protected area with a socially progressive community development agenda
• Tirimbina Biological Reserve, lowland Caribbean rainforest run by a non-profit and for-profit ecotourism venture, PUP member
• Wellness Park integrates conservation and postmodern human wellness themes, also family owned, for profit private conservation, PUP member
• Monteverde Cloud Forest is run by a non-profit, scientific management with an innovative edge, PUP member
• Punta Islita Macaw Recovery Center is run by the Macaw Recovery Network, a non-profit scientific wildlife management approach to reproduce and reintroduce macaws into the wild
• Chorotega Model Forest, a landscape-scale development model that seeks community wellbeing through sustainable resource management
• Santa Rosa and Rincon de la Vieja National Parks which also represent Costa Rican conservation areas (landscape-scale development model that seeks natural heritage conservation) and a World Heritage Site
• In the same space Junquillal National Wildlife Refuge, a co-managed site with the local community

At most sites, students got to speak with the managers themselves.