History

Las Casas de la Selva is a rainforest enrichment project, owned and operated by Tropic Ventures (a joint venture between Global Ecotechnics Corporation and Decisions Team Inc.) 

In 1983 a 1,000 acre tract of rainforest land located in the Southern Central Highlands of Puerto Rico, adjacent to the Carite National Forest, was purchased by the founders of Global Ecotechnics Corporation. This spectacular site with its steep thickly-forested slopes, beautiful rivers and waterfalls has become the home of Las Casas de la Selva. 

The project was conceived in an era when the threat to the continued existence of the planet's rainforest resources was well understood but practical solutions to the problems were yet to be found.  

The aim of the project is to show that rainforest ecology can be maintained while the land is utilized, to a degree, for enough profit to encourage local caretaking of the forest. This is demonstrated by growing valuable hardwoods using a special approach developed by the Institute of Ecotechnics (UK) that does not diminish the forests' biodiversity, reduce its productivity, or create such a devastating invasion that the forests regenerative capacity is destroyed. This type of approach is especially important as one way to counter the current worldwide trends of clearing forest land for the purposes of one-time timber sales, of establishing monocultural plantations and of cattle grazing.