Eden Project Celebration Event and Film Launch Ahead of Spectacular 100 Hectare Restored Land Handover

Premiering at the Royal Society on 14 October, Voices from Nicoya is a new short film from the Eden Project in partnership with the Costa Rica Tourist Board set in Nicoya on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It celebrates the success of an ambitious initiative launched to restore a vital “biological corridor” and create a blueprint for regeneration in Costa Rica’s highly endangered tropical dry forests.

The film explores the transformational story of restored forest, community, and sustainable tourism to act as a beacon of hope for the planet. It comes ahead of the Eden Project’s 25^th anniversary year in 2026, when the educational charity plans to return its vast 100 hectares restoration landscape back to the people whose livelihoods rely on it.   

Costa Rica is now recognised as the gold standard and world leader in eco-tourism underpinned by approaches educational charity the Eden Project has helped to spearhead. For the past eight years it has been at the heart of this movement, working on the ground with local partners to invest and be the catalyst for extraordinary regeneration focusing on the precious Nicoya Peninsula. 

Once degraded farmland scorched by drought, the land is being transformed into a thriving tropical dry forest teeming with life. Using plantings of 38,000 thousand fruiting cacao trees, the Eden Project has also supported the restoration of this valuable crop devastated by plant disease in the 1970s. Farmers are deploying these plants in agroforestry systems, cultivating cacao beneath native canopy trees that protect soil health, provide habitat for wildlife, and lock away carbon.  

Recovering Costa Rica’s cacao industry is driving a renaissance, with this plant becoming a symbol of ecological resilience and sustainable livelihoods. In the region where the Eden Project is working, a growing movement of smallholder farmers and cooperatives has used cacao to support nature recovery, biodiversity conservation, and a cultural revival.  

The Eden Project’s collaboration in Costa Rica taps into transformative potential. This approach is to create exceptional cacao beans sought after by artisanal chocolate makers worldwide but also to strengthen local economies and uplift the economic resilience of rural families. By providing native cacao and companion trees, the charity is helping to regenerate degraded lands while also creating income opportunities.  

As global demand for ethical, fine-flavour chocolate rises, Costa Rica stands poised to lead a new generation of cacao farming, producing world-class chocolate. Supporting this renaissance of cacao farming in Costa Rica is rooted in harmony with nature, and part of the Eden Project’s mission to restore ecosystems and empower communities. 

At the heart the Eden Project’s approach is collaboration, bringing together a network of Costa Rican and international partners — including the Costa Rica Tourism Board, the Land Stewardship Co. and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture — to support nature recovery, biodiversity gain, sustainable livelihoods, and community development.  

Andy Jasper, Eden Project CEO, said: “With our Voices of Nicoya film, we celebrate years of extraordinary partnership in Costa Rica. The story shows nature’s astonishing ability to recover and how communities flourish when tourism, cacao and ecology thrive together. This is Eden’s spirit at its best: collaboration that fuels hope. I’m especially proud that this film has also empowered emerging talent at the Eden Project, creating opportunities here in the UK just as the overarching project has in Costa Rica.  Living proof that when we act together, brilliance multiplies. I am so proud of this Eden Project and everyone who has made it possible.   

As an educational charity, the Eden Project, in partnership with the Costa Rica Tourism Board, has also created stunning exhibits inside its world-famous Rainforest Biome in Cornwall, UK. Here visitors are transported into a world that looks, smells and feels just like being in Costa Rica, so that they can connect with nature, learn about pioneering nature restoration and eco-tourism approaches that support livelihoods in harmony with cultural heritage. 

Ireth Rodríguez, Chief of Promotion at the Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) said: 

“Since 1997 Costa Rica has invested in programmes and taken bold steps to protect our precious landscapes. We have acted to preserve and restore biodiversity, setting a high standard, exploring ways to support nature, thriving livelihoods and offer sustainably minded travellers one of the most spectacular destinations to visit in the world. We’re incredibly proud to celebrate Costa Rica’s story in partnership with Eden Project and the hope this offers the world.” 

With climate and biodiversity crises escalating, the Eden Project’s Costa Rica film serves as both a proof of concept and an invitation — to communities, investors, and visitors — to take part in building a future where ecosystems flourish and people prosper.  

Voices of Nicoya will premiere at the Royal Society on 14 October. It will also be screened at the Eden Project in Cornwall UK and offered free to view on YouTube.