WHO IS BEHIND THE SACRED LAND PROJECT
Kathrin Schmack
A Life Guided by Nature
Throughout her life, Kathrin has walked in deep harmony with nature, attuned to its subtle messages and sacred rhythms. As an Architect and Taoist Feng Shui master with over 25 years of experience, she has cultivated the ability to perceive energetic flows in sp ace and work with natural laws to create places of balance and healing.
Her inner compass—guided by profound intuition, Taoist wisdom, and ancient knowledge—led her to the Osa Peninsula in southern Costa Rica. There, she followed a personal journey mapped by ley lines, energetic pathways that revealed the precise location where the Green Dragon Rainforest Academy would emerge.
“Create experiences to enlighten young minds as cosmic beings”
Today, Kathrin continues to co-create a sanctuary for transformation, a place where humans and the forces of nature collaborate to restore harmony.
As an architect and geomancer, she works with the multidimensional grace of energy in space:
“When the directional energies of the five elements are in their rightful place—when they’ve ‘come home’—then we create a space of peace where war can never arise. This is an irrefutable law of nature.”
At Green Dragon, this philosophy shapes not only our buildings, but our community. We are a living field of resonance, healing, and spiritual evolution.
Marcelo Zaiduni
Taruka Larama (The Blue Deer)
Guardian of Ancestral Wisdom
Marcelo Zaiduni Salazar is a spiritual guide, traditional doctor, and cultural guardian with a profound commitment to the healing of the Earth and the remembrance of ancestral ways. Born in Bolivia and rooted in the Aymara worldview, Marcelo carries the fire of Abya Yala—the living memory of the original peoples of the Andes and Amazon.
For over two decades, Marcelo has walked the path of the Chakana—the Andean cross that symbolizes the integration of worlds. As a former Vice Minister of Interculturality, Vice Consul, and international consultant for the United Nations and other global organizations, he has worked to protect sacred territories, indigenous knowledge, and spiritual traditions across continents.
“To restore balance in the world, we must listen to the Earth, to the elders, and to the wisdom written in the stones, the rivers, and the stars.”
Marcelo is not only a guardian of oral tradition but also a ceremonial leader, herbalist, and peacebuilder. His life is a bridge between worlds—between modern institutions and sacred cosmovisions, between ancestral prophecy and planetary regeneration.
Today, at the Green Dragon Rainforest Academy, Marcelo weaves his deep spiritual lineage into the heart of our community. Through rituals, teachings, and daily practices, he nurtures a space where indigenous prophecy, Taoist harmony, and bioregional awakening converge.
His work honors the sacred relationship between humans and nature, spirit and matter, memory and vision.
“The time has come to remember who we are. To awaken the original instructions of the Earth, and to walk again as guardians of life.”
OUR FOUNDING MEMBERS
Kathrin Schmack
President
Marcelo Zaiduni
Vice President
Julia van Wilpe
Co-Founder
Anja Mays
Co-Founder
Maria von Bismarck
Co-Founder
Heike Christel
Co-Founder
Alexandra Castillo
Co-Founder
OUR STORY
In the heart of the Osa Peninsula, where the rainforest whispers with ancestral voices and the ocean breathes life into the land, The Sacred Land Project was born. It began with a simple, yet powerful vision: to build a future in balance — where humans no longer dominate nature, but walk beside her.
Guided by the profound wisdom of indigenous traditions, especially the Ngäbe people, and rooted in the spiritual and biocultural richness of the region, our project seeks to regenerate life — not just ecologically, but socially, culturally, and spiritually. We believe that true transformation begins by healing our relationship with the Earth, ourselves, and one another.
This is why we are creating a bioregional sanctuary: an open laboratory where ancient knowledge meets modern science, and where communities can rediscover the art of living in reciprocity. From planting ceremonial cacao to building the Green Dragon Rainforest Academy, we are setting the foundations for a new kind of economy — one based on regeneration, education, and deep connection.
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We invite you to walk with us. To learn. To build. To belong.
Our Mission
To build a harmonious future for humanity by regenerating ancestral biocultural wisdom and restoring our connection with nature through a holistic, spiritual, and community-based way of living.
We are guided by the integration of two worlds—ancient and modern, Indigenous and Taoist—where deep listening, reciprocity, and sacred design converge to heal both people and the Earth.
Our Vision
To create a regenerative Bioregion in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, where individuals and communities can reconnect with the forces of nature, embrace ancient knowledge, and cultivate a new philosophy of life based on balance, reciprocity, and collective well-being.
By uniting Eastern Taoist traditions with the ancestral wisdom of Abya Yala, we envision a living sanctuary where harmony between the visible and invisible worlds becomes a lived reality.