Roberta's Forest Blog — Let's Get Planting

Candlelight vigil, December 12, 2009

Happy Holidays and thanks to all of you for making LRFF a great success this year, 2009. This blog is a year-end gift, dedicated to you, news you can use.

On December 12th there was a candlelight vigil held at La Reserva, Costa Rica. The date was midway through the climate change summit in Copenhagen. Three thousand of these events in 130 countries around the world asking the negotiators for a “Real Deal” to lower the parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere from 387 to 350 and keep it there. We all stood beneath Papa Loco with our candles and each read a portion of a statement prepared by the 350.org group.

The accord was a disappointment for most of the world but there was good news in it. There is big support from the developed world for forestry and especially REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation), in other words forest preservation and restoration.

Other great news, Chichas, the sloth that was rehabilitating at La Reserva after being electrocuted last April was released in his home territory on December 16th. This year we have rehabilitated two sloths in 20 months time. Check out the photos below.

Chichas, and Daniel the day of his freedom

Chichas, just 10 days after his accidental electrocution, with Ana Christina the veterinarian

Chichas free, moving up the tree to his freedom. He went up into the canopy and rested until dark, then left

Giant Studios, makers of the movie, Avatar, just released on December 18th, worldwide, gave the donation that completed the funding for the “Connecting Forest Island in Costa Rica” project on www.globalgiving.org They named the donation, in commemoration of the wrap of the movie in late November,”Project Hometree”, linking everyone back to LRFF. Go to www.projecthometree.org and you will come up to the new page we have created for this at the LRFF website www.lrff.org There you can read the whole story about our friends at Giant Studios.

We created a new project on globalgiving.org named “Project Hometree, La Tejona, Costa Rica” (http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/project-hometree-costa-rica/) The name is dedicated to the movie Avatar and Giant Studios plus it is aptly named Hometree because we are going to finish the remaining pasture grasses at La Reserva by reforesting them with native trees and keeping them maintained.

Project Hometree area at La Tejona, Costa Rica

Our friend, Ross Nicholson, demonstrating the snake catcher

Finally, thanks to our friend and great supporter, Ross Nicholson. Like Santa Claus he brought LRFF a brand new GPS this week for Christmas. With this we can get all of the coordinates of the lands we work with plus there is even a program for area calculation. We plan to have the forest cover software installed. This will save us some walking by showing us where the forest is and the spaces in between, where the tree corridor will stretch.

We hope your new year, 2010, is adventurous, satisfying and more than anything else, peaceful. You will find us planting more trees next year on more properties. My desk is clean for the first time in years, time to eat tamales tomorrow, the 24th and the 25th, with our friends and rest.

From my heart, a light to you, thank you.