Geoporter Costa Rica is a local non-profit NGO founded in 2016 located in Bahía Ballena, Osa, Costa Rica. Geoporter is an organization in which we train and empower members of the coastal communities of the Bahia Ballena district in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and GPS to examine local resources and in the identification and resolution of social and environmental problems in order to promote the sustainable development of the area.

From the organization and with the support of community members, GIS have been used to monitor cetacean populations in order to assist in obtaining data used in scientific and technical studies of these animals, but also to create protocols for responsible sighting. Similarly, GIS have been implemented to monitor the most degraded areas as a result of deforestation and changes in land use, and coastal and riverine reforestation programs have been implemented to reduce the effects of erosion caused by these anthropogenic activities. Also, various monitoring in coastal and terrestrial marine environments began to alarm members of these communities about the mismanagement and management of solid waste, especially of single-use plastics.

For this reason, in recent years the organization has focused on environmental education programs to raise awareness and sensitize on the impact on biodiversity and human welfare as a result of the high and unnecessary consumption and use of plastic products in tourist activities, and thus, strategies have been developed to reduce and/or replace plastic products in the educational, institutional, commercial and tourist sectors of Costa Ballena.