In the early 1950s, the densely forested and wild south frontier of Costa Rica was opened up for settlement. The Cole family pioneered the remote land that became Finca Loma Linda. Over the following 30 years, much of the region underwent a massive change from rain forest to deforested and degraded farmland. Influenced by the new academic field of agroecology and the desire to avoid the extreme degradation that followed deforestation and unsustainable agriculture, a large portion of old growth forest on the farm was protected and new practices adopted. In the 1990s, Loma Linda became a center for outreach to local farmers. In the last decade, the farm has been converted into a biological field station, providing resources for pioneering research on forest restoration.