Roberta's Forest Blog — Let's Get Planting

Cesar Loaiciga

This story begins last March when the local Tronadora Technical School’s Eco-Tourism class came to La Reserva for a tour through the forest reserve. Two months later one senior student, Cesar Loaiciga, called us. He was so inspired with the large, fast-growing, regenerated forest at La Reserva. It is so full of life, in every form, and so quickly it happened.

Cesar wanted to know if we could help him to accomplish a reforestation project for his final year’s project. Something to leave to all future alumni. A legacy.

The school was built approximately 5 years ago on a 1 ½ hectare piece of land that ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) donated to the municipality of Tronadora. When the school was built they cut all of the trees down. The school grounds only take up the front lot. Out back they ran cattle on the remaining land down to the creek. A nice secondary forest lines the creek bed.

Colegio Tecnico de Tronadora, front of land

Cesar wanted to reforest all of the land no being used by classrooms or needed for future school expansion to native forest. He had permission from the Board of Directors of the school. We suggested that if he wanted to do all of the project organization and create a simple budget for the project costs, we would donate ½ of the native tree seedlings from La Reserva, ½ from the ICE nursery and would also send his budget to all of the generous people that help us periodically with donations for worthwhile projects.

His Excel budget came to me only days later. It had some costs that weren’t necessary, like fertilizer and pesticides. I sent it back with a note concerning these issues. The next day it was in my face again. The total came to $1100.00 USD including 2 years of tree maintenance. We wrote a short note with Cesar’s budget attached asking for donations. Within 1 week we had all the funding needed pledged.

Thank you to our donors. With your generous help 1500 trees were planted on those school grounds August 1, 2009. The students are working on a carved wooden sign for their new forest with all the names of the donors listed below. It will be put up on the school lot.

Cesar named the day for planting and we let all of our faithful volunteer planters know, Saturday, August 1st. In the meantime Cesar had a small crew digging the holes and hired a small cargo taxi to transport the seedlings from La Reserva and ICE to the school on Friday afternoon. Saturday dawned very nasty, indeed, with high winds and heavy rains. Daniel and I packed our plastic ponchos with our sandwiches.

When we got to the school at 8 am it was all locked up but our nieces, Angie and Daniela Viquez, were waiting for us. We found a wire gate to pass through so that we could get under a roof while we waited for the volunteers to arrive. One friend was bringing two wheelbarrows to haul the trees down to the holes.

Daniel, Daniela and Angie, waiting

Our two great, hardest working friends and volunteers, Carla and Eduardo Gomez showed up next. We all wondered where everyone else was, but figured we’d better get hauling the trees back there so that some of us could get planting. Eduardo and I took a big piece of plastic, spread it out, placed a bunch of seedlings on it and then gathered up the ends. This is how we hauled them until the wheelbarrows came.

Hauling the trees in a sling

Not many volunteers came to help that day and I don’t blame them. The weather was very bad at first. The sun did come out later in the morning. The volunteers included Eduardo and Carla Gomez, Angie and Daniela Viquez, Gary Graham, David, Alina and Patrick Aust, Michele Glenn, Becky Miller, Doug Ward and Jose the school guard. Thank you to all of you for the big help and the wheelbarrows. That was a lot of trees to plant for so few people, but we finished at 4 pm, very tired, hungry, thirsty and sore. David Aust brought a couple of pizzas and soda pop for everyone to share in the afternoon. Thanks, David, and for always supporting La Reserva by having your kids come help.

Angie Viquez planting one of the first trees

Carl Gomez, planting

Eduardo Gomez, planting

Gary Graham and Patrick Aust, picking up the plastic nursery bags

Jose, the school’s night guard, who worked all day planting

You know what, though, as I worked all through the morning, early afternoon and then in the late afternoon when I got so tired, every time I felt it I would tune into the background sounds. There were many different birds songs and calls all around me and down by the creek. In the near distance the Howler Monkeys were yelling every so often. Well, this is what kept me going. The La Reserva Forest Foundation was created because of those background sounds and no matter how difficult the task is, this is what drives me on. It is our responsibility, all of us.

Alina and David Aust with Cesar Loaiciga and Patrick Aust in front.

We couldn’t leave all of the poor little tree seedlings sitting out until Monday, as one of the volunteers offered because they needed to be planted the same day they were brought out from the nursery. These are responsibilities that I love because it is love that is speaking to us and from us when we consider the well being of all the other living beings that surround us at every moment.

Lucas Foglia enjoying a ripe Guava (Guayaba in Ticoville) while he took photos for the photo journal he is creating

Now that we are all rested up, 2 weeks later, we feel extremely proud to have accomplished this planting, even with so little help. Now we will sit and watch it grow into a forest over the next few years. We DID learn a good lesson at this planting. From now on we will hire a crew of workers, like we usually do for our other projects for the hole digging, and add the tree planting days wages to the budget for the project. This way if people want to volunteer to plant and come for an hour or two, or just to plant one tree, they can and not have to feel like they need to break their backs helping “get the job done”.

The field, full of newly planted trees.

Thank you again to all of the donors for this project, all of the people who worked so hard on Saturday, August 1st to get the seedlings planted and especially to Cesar Loaiciga for all of the work he put into this project. There is still work to come with the tree maintenance for two years.

No matter how you do it, labor, donations or organizational work it all leads to restoring our native, tropical forests. So come on everybody…..

LET’S GET PLANTING!!!!