Guaria de Osas Staff and Community
* Our Community at Guaria
de Osa
* International Staff and
Liaison
* Cultural Master
The
Staff at Guaria de Osa
Jonathon Miller Weisberger
Jonathon is Guaria de Osa’s founder and steward. Jonathon,
or Sparrow as his friends call him was born in Berkeley California
and raised from a very young age in the country of Ecuador. Since
2000 he has been living 9 months a year in Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula
overseeing all aspects of the construction of Guaria de Osa Centre.
He is more than our “jefe” he is also Guaria’s
principal rainforest guide, plant master, storyteller and much more!
He likes to consider himself a professional beach bum, but this
is far from the truth, quite on the contrary, he is an intrepid
and knowledgeable rainforest guide and ethnobotanist, with 15 years
of ground level experience, having guided over 550 participants
into remote regions of Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica. He also practices
and teaches: Tui Na massage, Foot reflexology, Tai Chi and Dao In
(Taoist exercises for health), I Ching study, Herbology and
is Guaria's on site Surf Instructor.
Jonathon is an enthusiastic storyteller who’s extensive and
knowledgeable understanding of rainforest medicinal flora and indigenous
life and world view is unique. He has collaborated as an ethnobotanist
and as a rainforest conservation advocate, living for over 10 years
(1990-2000) in the Upper Amazon among 5 distinct indigenous peoples
communities and tribes.
Co-author of two ethnobotanical, bi-lingual educational books dedicated
to indigenous youth in Amazonian Ecuador, Jonathon has published
articles in Spanish and English. He has collected over 2500 herbarium
specimens deposited in several herbariums in Ecuador and Peru. He
has also collaborated on, initiated and overseen innovative rainforest
conservation projects including the creation of biological reserves,
de-colonization and the demarcation of indigenous territories, buffer
zones around national parks, ancestral lands reclamation and cultural
heritage revival. He has been influential in saving thousands of
hectares of rainforest lands primarily in Ecuador on behalf of the
projects.
Rainforest Medicine:
Preserving Indigenous Science & Biodiversity in the Upper Amazon
by Jonathon Sparrow Miller Weisberger, ethnobotanist,
founder and steward of Guaria de Osa,
director of Council for Cultural & Biological Diversity (www.4biodiversity.org)
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Click photo to enlarge |
Monica Serrano
Monica Serrano, born and raised in Ecuador, has been at Guaria de Osa since 2003. She is Guaria de Osa's staff administrator. Her dedication, good taste, caring way, and team spirit makes her a faithful asset.
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Guaria's Kitchen and Housekeeping Staff |
International Staff and Liaison
Ladna
Miller Weisberger
Ladna is completing her degree in applied Ecology/Biology at La
Universidad de San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador. She is Guaria de
Osa's assistant International Liaison and, about 2 - 3 times a year,
she comes to Guaria de Osa to work with her brother, Jonathon, to
be our rainforest and ocean field guide.
Her skills and passions also include scuba diving, rainforest ecology,
photography, and she is an avid practitioner of Capoeira. Since
1995 Ladna has been an active member of our ground level rainforest
conservation projects and in 2002 became project coordinator for
Grupo Osanimi’s Rainforest Conservation and Cultural Heritage
Projects in the Ecuadorian Amazonian and Andes. Please read: Council for Cultural and Biological Diversity.
Please contact Ladna at for donations to our ground-level Rainforest Conservation projects in the Ecuadorian Amazon and Andes and our Marine Turtle Rescue project on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. Ladna is also the contact person for Volunteers interested in service at Guaria de Osa. More info at: www.4biodiversity.org
Dahlia Kresch Miller
Dahlia, born and raised in Panama [as Esther Miller] by Polish immigrants, has spent most of her life in Latin America. She lived in Ecuador from 1968 – 1985 where she raised two graceful children. Her daughter Ladna Yanara is an ecologist/biologist, coordinator of Grupo Osanimi's Rainforest Conservation and Cultural Heritage Projects in Ecuador, a photographer and an avid practitioner of Capoeira. Her son, Jonathon Sparrow is an ethnobotanist, founder and steward of Guaria de Osa, the director of Grupo Osanimi & The Council for Cultural and Biological Diversity, photographer, an avid practitioner of Chinese Medicine and its philosophy and Martial Arts.
While raising her family in Ecuador, Dahlia taught high school in Quito. In her home, she gave piano lessons and taught vegetarian cooking classes (an original concept in those days in Ecuador). In 1974, with Gilad Zamir from Kibbutz Ein Dor in Israel, Dahlia co-founded "Hojas de Hierba" a cultural centre named after Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." She programmed live cultural and educational events like Ecuador had not seen before, alongside a restaurant that served the first vegetarian dishes in Ecuador, together with other 'firsts' in this beloved country of hers.
Dahlia is a founding member of Guaria de Osa since its beginning in 2001 and is Sentient Experientials' international Liaison. She studied piano at Juilliard Conservatory of Music in New York, received her Masters Degree in the Interdisciplinary Studies of Consciousness at John F. Kennedy University in California and began a Ph.D. degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies – with a focus on Living Systems Theory. Dahlia turns her personal, professional, and passionate attention to the wellbeing and lessons of the Rainforest and her gardeners and stewards.
Boat Captain
Olman Zuñiga is our primary boat captain.
He is a native of the Osa Peninsula, an experienced boat captain
having been raised on our beach. Olman’s calm disposition
and love of his profession make each of his ocean bound adventures
and unforgettable and grand experience.Olman is a genuine maestro of the sea.
Note on boat captains: Guaria de Osa contracts
all ocean bound voyages and transfers to and from the lodge to local
boat captains, such as Olman and others like Asdrual Mora and occasionally
the boats from other neighboring lodges. So you may meet other boat
captains, though Olman is our main captain.
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Guaria de Osa's 'jack-of-all-trades' beach boys |
Cultural Master:
Click here for our Special Events
don Pablo Amaringo
don Pablo Amaringo, a legendary, world-class Amazonian painter from Peru and Director of the USKO AYAR School of Amazonian Painting in Pucallpa, whose paintings are featured in the book Ayahuasca Visions, The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, of which he is co-author. In 1992, he was elected to the Global 500 Roll of Honor of the United Nations Environment Program in recognition of his work to protect and improve the environment through the USKO-AYAR school. Pablo Amaringo was a teacher-in-residence at Guaria de Osa EcoLodge for several years beginning in 2003. Click here for Pablo Amaringo Paintings
Fulfilling don Pablo's wish, all profits of the sales of prints from his original paintings go to Rainforest Conservation projects in the Amazon.
His spirit rides in the wind
and flows with the rivers
all over the world.
1943 - November 16, 2009
Pucallpa, Perú
don Victorio Villareal Villareal Cascarilla
don Victorio is a Costa Rican (Tico) native, an Herbologist and Natural healer. From time to time, he comes to Guaria toÊlead shorter nature walks, identifies the local medicinal and useful plants, distinguishes the birds, spots well-camouflaged creatures, and shares his insightful knowledge of plants and pre-Columbian archeology. don Victorio's other gifts, talents, and passions include plant healing, story-telling of the region, predicting the weather and serenading Latin American guitar music of yester-yore and challengimg you to an unforgettable game of dominoes!
Pestañas
/ “Eyebrows” and Ana
Pestañas, one of our horses, and Ana, scarlet macaw, are part of our community.
Read some of our guests comments here >>

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