ReGenerOsa Collective
🌐ReGenerOsa is a biocultural regeneration collective led by women who are reclaiming land, language, and local governance in the face of rapid ecological degradation, cultural loss, and speculative tourism.
Bioregional Context
The Osa Peninsula is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, holding 2.5% of Earth's biodiversity on less than one-thousandth of the planet's land mass. The region faces dual pressures of conservation-driven exclusion and tourism-driven development.
- Network Affiliation
- BioFi Project
Background
The Osa Peninsula in southern Costa Rica sits where Pacific coastline meets tropical rainforest. It is often called the most biologically intense place on Earth. Less than one-thousandth of the planet’s land mass holds about 2.5% of global biodiversity—rainforest, mangroves, and wildlife at a scale that draws worldwide attention.
That richness sits alongside deep strain. Globalized economic pressures erode social cohesion, intergenerational knowledge, and collective capacity. Roughly 40–70% of the local economy is informal, and about 80% depends on tourism. After gold mining and logging, the bioregion now faces both conservation-driven exclusion and tourism-driven development.
Substantial philanthropic funding reaches the Osa, yet most of it flows to conservation. Work is often fragmented and siloed, with missed chances to collaborate. Local communities are sidelined from funding and decisions; strategies lean on outside academics and scientists. Well-meaning regenerative projects from elsewhere can land as imposed fixes rather than support for people who already know the land.
Origins and Network
Trisha Stapleton is a 23-year resident of the Osa Peninsula and, from the local Cabécar population, has unlearned assumptions she once held and deepened how she relates to the land.
Around February 2020 this work took clearer shape. She looked online for what “regeneration” meant and found the Earth Regenerators Network—a mix of theory and on-the-ground practice. The Earth Regenerators Fund was forming; ReGenerOsa received support from its first round of regeneration funding.
From there came the RegenerOsa Collective: how to bring trust-based funding that supports local communities into a trust-based process on the ground?
Activities
Stone Soup Social
Like many efforts here, it began with food. The first gathering was a stone soup social—people brought ingredients, shared a meal, and started to meet. That rhythm ran from February 2, 2020, for about six weeks until COVID shut public gatherings down.
Manos Cambiadas
They launched “Manos Cambiadas,” rooted in an old pattern of neighbors helping neighbors. They worked alongside neighbors on farms and with what people needed day to day. The project continues and has mobilized more than 1,200 volunteers as community members rotate labor across farms.
Food Sovereignty and Seed Saving Networks
After Manos Cambiadas, a gap stood out: many farmers could not sell what they grew. They started “Caja Verde,” a community-supported agriculture box; a year later that evolved into Mercado Verde. For over four years they have run a farmers market—200-plus markets—strengthening food sovereignty and security. ReGenerOsa works with farmers, elders, and schools on seed-saving networks, agroecological gardens, and cooperative distribution grounded in local knowledge and biodiversity. Pilot gardens are underway; the collective supports women reclaiming ancestral seed practices and native varieties. Scaling will take resources—more communities, training, and a regional network to link growers, seeds, and markets in a closed loop.
ReGenerOsa Women's Governance Circle
ReGenerOsa is guided by what it calls the Council of Eight—a circle of eight long-serving local women leaders, including Indigenous, campesina, and Afro–Costa Rican elders—who set direction and keep activities accountable to place-based wisdom. Hazel, who works with the Seto Territorial Council, sits on the Council of Eight. The circle decides project priorities, how funds are allocated, and partnership terms. The collective comprises the women’s council, community weavers, donors, and ambassadors. Strengthening the structure calls for facilitation training, administrative support, and stipends for participation. The model is also meant as a prototype for other communities, showing how regenerative finance and land stewardship can be held collectively and ethically outside top-down NGO patterns.
Osa Biocultural Fund
The Osa Biocultural Fund is a flexible tool to seed community-run work in food sovereignty, ecological restoration, arts, and education. It is designed with participatory governance anchored in local women and elders. They are seeking $29,000 to develop and scale the fund, which distributes more than $25,000 a year to regenerative projects. One fully participatory round used $6,000. Ambassadors, the council, participants, and investors all voted on which projects to fund. That modest sum has helped spark broader collaboration—among them a complementary currency at the local farmers market and a microcredit system applicants now run themselves.
Osa Regenerative Learning Center (El Local)
El Local is a community hub and learning center that anchors regenerative projects. It hosts youth programs, intergenerational exchange, local storytelling, and skills for land-based living. The curriculum draws on Indigenous and Afro-descendant knowledge, local farming, and wider regenerative education. A school meets there; the space is multi-use and oriented to solidarity and reweaving community, with meetings, gatherings, visitors, and work traders keeping it active.
Vision and Legacy
Over the past five years, their initiatives have held an open funding round reaching nine of twelve local communities, run the farmers market for more than four years, mobilized 1,200-plus volunteers through Manos Cambiadas, convened 30-plus bioregional stakeholder initiatives, and piloted circular economy practices, community currencies, and regenerative techniques.
The long-term aim is to co-create a municipal strategy for a fully regenerative canton—showing how a whole region can organize around ecological and social health. Many systems operate across the Osa without a shared center; little ties them together. ReGenerOsa seeks to be that weaving force—aligning elected bodies, institutions, investors, and community groups around a shared sense of where the region goes next.