Roberta's Forest Blog — Let's Get Planting

It’s been a tornado of activity at La Reserva this past month and a half. This is my first chance to catch up with all of you. There are many stories to tell and photos to show. In fact there are so many pictures I think it might be more interesting for you if I let the pictures tell the story for the most part with just a little help from me.

Michele Glenn and Daniel Spreen Wilson took all of the pictures and they are great as always.

At the beginning of May our second volunteer, Christopher Long, from the uVolunteer organization arrived. He had just quit his job at Morgan Stanley, was doing a month of volunteer work at La Reserva and then returning to finish his masters in business. You can read his and all of the other volunteers stories and weekly reports on the new webpage at http://www.lrff.org called Volunteer Stories. Check it out.

Chris Long fixing fence

One day, while Chris and Omar were working out in front of the La Reserva entrance, they spotted Peluchi hanging right above the road. It had been over two weeks since we had released him into the forest and he had made it back from his release point, over 500 meters away. He hung around there for a couple of days and we haven’t seen or heard from him since. One day I did see another two-toed sloth in the same vicinity and I had the feeling that Peluchi may possibly be following his peer around the forest territory. The females do have social friends and because he is still a baby, this could be the case.

Peluchi, hanging out

On June 5th, Environment Day, we had the first planting of Niko Panna’s properties. Our last volunteer, Brittany MacGillivray, was here for this planting. Again, you can read her story on the new Volunteer Stories page on our website. She helped with digging the holes on this site and the following week as well. This first planting was in Sabalito de Tilarån. It is about 1 hectare in size. We planted 1000 trees here and over 20 volunteers came to help, including the students from the local elementary school. We finished planting all of the trees in 3 ½ hours.

Look at them work, eh

Boys planting

Beauty

My friend Carla Gomez

German Aguilar from ACAT and kids

Kids and their teacher planting

Carla Gomez and Mary Blizzard-Kelly

Omar Muñoz and Wiberth Viquez

Our friend, Wally Razanauskas, from Quebrada Grande and Toronto

Thank you again to all of you helped that day. We love you and depend on your support at these events.

The following Friday, June 12th, we held our second planting at Niko’s property in Rio Piedras de Tilarán. This was a much larger piece, at least 2 hectares of surface area. We needed over 2000 seedlings for this planting and many more volunteers showed up. At least 30 people were there to help, including the local elementary schoolchildren and the students from the private school in Tilarán. Their teacher, Jenny Daniels, had a great idea. We were struggling with this property because the big delivery truck could only park way down at the bottom of the property, which was only a narrow entryway. This meant we would have to haul all of the trees up to the top. Jenny suggested that the kids make a “cadena” (chain) and pass the seedlings along for part of the way. This was a good start and then Jairo (one of the workers we hired) brought his horse, Centenario, with a packsaddle so that we could load 2 feed sacks on each side of him, each containing 25 trees. The hauling was the hardest part of this planting. Not only did we have the horse hauling them up, but Doug Ward’s hard working guy, Ballardo, Juan from Parcelas, Omar Muñoz, Gabriel from Rio Piedras and Eduardo Gomez were hauling the sacks on their backs. Down at the loading area Doug Ward, Rhonda and Rob, Carla Gomez, Daniel Spreen and me put the seedlings into the sacks.

The staff at the Toyota dealership, Purdy Motors, in Liberia came to help plant plus our friends from ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) who are on the Lake Arenal/Tenorio Volcano Biological Corridor Commission with us.

Loading the truck with seedlings at La Reserva in the early morning

The frontline loading area, Rhonda from Guadalajara de Rio Piedras, Centenario loaded up and Eduardo Gomez

One of our friends from Purdy Motors. This is a great picture, what intention!

Students planting on the hillside. This property goes way up to the left and over the hill.

Our friends from Purdy Motors in the red shirts and fellow members of the corridor commission from ICE

Purdy Motors at lunch break

We planted over 2000 trees this day in about 4 ½ hours. Everyone was filthy dirty, hot, thirsty and tired afterward, but in high spirits. Thank you to all of you who helped with these plantings. Thank you to ICE for the donation of a portion of the seedlings from their nursery in Tronadora and above all, thank you to Niko Panna for the generous offering of his land to be reforested. Each and every one of us is indispensable in the process of restoring the world’s tropical, indigenous forests. It is very heartwarming to see people work so hard without any reward other than to see those baby trees planted. Even though everyone was beat the atmosphere was full of love and peace. Some like to call it, “that warm and fuzzy feeling”.

Our friend, Barry McConachie from Global Climate Strategies (http://www.globalclimatestrategies.com) in Austin, Texas, arrived in time for the meeting of the corridor commission on Monday, June 15th, Dia del Arbol (Arbor Day). We had a great meeting talking about the plantings we had just accomplished and the plans for more in the near future.

Top row: Daniel Spreen Wilson, Michele Glenn, Barry McConachie, Saray, German Aguilar, Ever Villegas and Alejo Perez. Front: Me, Ana Ramirez and Karla Sanchez.

After the meeting Barry, Daniel and I went to look at the reforested properties in Sabalito and Rio Pedras.

Barry and me at the Sabalito property, looking at the view of windmills and the village

On Tuesday, June 16th, we began an almost 2 week long road trip with Barry to check out forest carbon possibilities and reforestation potentials. Our first stop was in the province of Limon on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica. We arrived at Cahuita in time to enjoy the beach for a short time. The next morning we were going to meet Elias and Neftali Cruz, whose forested lands we had recently added to our REDD forest project.

The properties are near Rio Bananos, but further inland. It can only be reached by horseback and it takes almost 2 hours to get there and 2 hours back. We also met with Eliot Hines, a graduate student at Yale University and his three interns, Trent, Jaime and Danielle. They wanted to go along for the ride. Eliot is managing a study plot in the southern zone of Costa Rica, restoring forests within coffee plantations. He is very involved in the REDD framework and is due to speak in front of the United Nations soon. When we arrived at the “base camp” Denis and Marcos were waiting to sign-up for the project with almost 3000 hectares they own together. They had brought their documents and we got that business taken care of.

I need to say something here so that all of you will, hopefully, contemplate it. The majority of the people that have signed on for this project own many hectares of primary forest yet live in relative poverty. You will see below how hard they work and how they live. This is what really touches our hearts and keeps me badgering the people who will be writing the new framework for paying carbon offsets to private forest holders and indigenous peoples. These people are sitting, many for years and years, with beautiful, pristine forests that are cleaning the air of the world and receiving absolutely NOTHING for it. They love the forests, they believe in the value of the forests, even though this new carbon market is completely foreign to them, they know the medicinal plants that the forests contain. Believe me, when a person is hungry, living an impoverished lifestyle, it’s very easy to accept the offer of a timber man to allow him to cut “just a few” of the precious wood trees out of that existing forest. “Just a few” trees cut signals death to the surrounding ecosystem.

We all mounted up and off we went. Elias, Neftali, and Irene (Elias wife) led the way in their Toyota 4X4 for as far as it would go up the riverbed and then they had to go on foot. Marcos led all of us on horseback by foot. They were right, it was, at least, a two hour ride in. Oh, and the beautiful forest there, emerald green, super humid, endless shade. There was fresh water running out of the mountain, nothing to dirty it from above. We all had coffee at Neftali’s little mountain cabin and then returned by horse to the base camp. Enjoy the ride and sights.

From left: Elias Cruz, Denis Garcia Trañas, Marcos Caballero and Neftali Cruz. Denis is reading the memorandum of understanding in our “office” at the base camp.

Marcos leading us with Eliot close behind

Crossing the river once again. We must have crossed it 20 times each way.

This is how the people live who own many of the forested lands in our project. You can see in the background the road that has been cut and the trees that are being felled. The forest degradation is constantly marching further and further into virgin territory.

The following morning we drove to San Jose because we had an early flight to Ecuador. Our friend, Miguel Peñafiel, and I have been corresponding for almost a year about the reforestation opportunities in this area. It was amazing to see another countries landscape and people. Most of the forested lands have been destroyed for agricultural purposes. The main crops are rice, bananas and cacao. Thank you Miguel for your great hospitality and patience with us. You were a perfect host and we will be back!!

Our arrival at the airport in Ecuador. The taxi driver, Juan Carlos, Barry, Miguel and me. They assemble Chevrolets down there and so the roads are full of Chevy’s.

A view of the street outside our hotel room. Notice the little taxis that use only a bicycle or motorcycle for propulsion.

The Crayola Crayon box taxi

On the corner, a typical “restaurant” with the cooks right out there. It was hard to find a table because they were all full.

When we returned from Ecuador it was time for a few hours of R and R. Our excellent driver, Daniel, drove us away from San Jose, off to Playa Hermosa on the north Pacific coast. We made it just in time to see the sunset and took a swim at twilight.

Sunset at Solstice time in Costa Rica

The following morning Barry flew back to Texas and we returned to La Reserva. This blog is named Arbor Day because all of this was activity centered around that day, plus Environment Day was the first planting in Sabalito. I want to dedicate this blog to all of you who made it a special month. Thank you for the support and hard work you put forth to restore and preserve the world’s tropical, indigenous forests.

On Friday, July 3rd, Ana Ramirez brought the two-toed sloth, Chichas, to stay at La Reserva for a few weeks. We are trying to rehabilitate him after he was badly burned last April due to high-power lines. Ana, a biologist with ICE, and Karla Sanchez found him almost dead near the ICE headquarters in Tilarån. Together with Ana Christina, the veterinarian, they have worked to heal Chichas to the point where only his front hands are still bandaged. Here at La Reserva he has a larger enclosure (Peluchi’s old cage) than the large dog carrier he has been living in for the past 3 months. We put him out for exercise in the Hibiscus bush everyday for many hours. He is climbing around very well considering his bandaged hands. We all hope that he will regenerate the skin on his hands so that we can remove the bandages for good and release him into the forest in the next 6 weeks. Please, send him a blessing and healing energy.

Me, Ana and Chichas

My friend, Cade with Chichas. He’s so soft!!

With forest islands connected, via biological corridors, all around the world many innocent lives would be saved. Where there isn’t a natural crossing for the wildlife, where they must use electrical lines or busy thoroughfares, install “bridges for fauna” (puentes para fauna) like our friends at ICE did for the animals in our area. But most of all…………..

LET’S GET PLANTING, EVERYBODY!!