After our lovely stay Eladio's, it was hard to say goodbye but we had to venture onwards to a station called Pocosol (yes, that means little sun). We left Eladio's promptly 15 minutes late (we're on Tico time down here), so 8:15 it was. It was another 15-16 km hike out of Eladio's to our next destination of Pocosol. This hike I thought was a tad bit harder than the first part, mostly because it was ALL UP HILL. So yeah that was a fun hike. Still one of the most beautiful places I've ever been - the Children's Eternal Rainforest definitely did not disappoint. It was absolutely stunning.
So with this second hike, we had the added task of having to cross a river. And this wasn't like any old stream we had been crossing on previous hikes. This was a real river. The rangers, Moncho, and Johel used a bamboo tree as a barricade to prevent the rest of us from getting swept downstream. It was actually really fun to cross it, though it was a bit deep...
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| About to get really wet... (Photo creds to Carson) |
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| The building where we all slept - my room was the bottom right |
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| View from the balcony of the main building |
We only spent 2 nights in Pocosol, mostly doing bird diversity. The first morning after our arrival, we went bird watching at 6am and saw some really cool birds! My favorite is still the Oropendolas, which nested in one of the trees right outside the main building.
Once we were all boarded on our bus, we headed out to La Selva Biological Station (yes, THE La Selva). So for those of you who don't know about La Selva, it's located in Braulio Carrillo National Park. According to their website, La Selva is, "recognized internationally as one of the premier sites in the world for ongoing research in lowland rain forests." So basically it's a big deal. Basically envision dropping a really small university in the middle of a rain forest, and you have La Selva. It was weird, and none of us were really a fan. All of the paths throughout the park were paved, which is just odd and seems really unnatural. But the rangers were all super nice and gave us a tour of the trails after we arrived. Our group saw some cool bugs and birds:
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| Chestnut-headed Oropendola |
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| You can see their nests hanging from the tips of branches around the birds |
That day we spend doing other species reports around Pocosol, and then that afternoon we were given a lot of free time, so I went with many others to a waterfall that was maybe a 30-45 minute hike down some trails. It was really pretty:
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| Waterfall, Pocosol |
Then later that afternoon we did some more lectures and did species reports on many birds, such as the Black-mandibled Toucan, the Great Kiskadee, the Clay Colored Thrush (national bird of Costa Rica), and others. After dinner, we had a statistics lecture to introduce us to some tests we may use for our independent projects.
The following morning we left Pocosol. A truck came to collect all of our equipment and bags, and then an ex-military truck came to pick us up and bring us into town to meet our bus.
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| Leaving Pocosol in style! (Photo courtesy of Susan) |
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| Sleeping Peccari |
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| Baby Fer de Lance (very poisonous snake) |
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| Black-Mandibled Toucan |
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| Snowy Cotinga |
Upon arrival in La Selva also meant laundry for the first time in nearly a week (we had been wearing the same 2 pairs of clothes for that entire time). Laundry was welcomed with open arms, along with clean clothes brought by Kathy when she met us at the bus after Pocosol.
The only lecture we had in La Selva was on Tree Fall Gaps, so we all hiked out to a gap in the park and sat on the trail while Alan lectured. We then did a small activity showing how different species of trees can grow in the gap, and how it can be decided randomly. We did this by dividing into 3 groups (representing a species of tree), all determined by the type of party hat we were wearing. I was in the princess group, and there was also the Elmo group as well as the High School Musical group. The way the game worked was Moncho would draw one of our names from a hat, and that meant that we as an individual died and we left a gap in the canopy. Then Moncho would pick a second name, and whatever species that person was, was the species that would regrow in that gap (so the first person would change party hats). It was a really interesting way of showing how in many cases, a tree fall gap is filled randomly.
We spent only 1 night in La Selva, but it was a very cool experience to see where many famous experiments have been done in the tropics.
After La Selva, we took another road trip to a place called Tirimbina, which is located a little further North of La Selva. We stayed here for 3 days. This place was adorable, and the place we stayed was located at the opposite end of the main part of the reserve.
Humans in the Tropics - Forestry
The first of the three days spent in Tirimbina was a Humans in the Tropics day. That day focused on forestry, and we learned about many different stages and types of forestry. The night before we had a lecture as an introduction, so here is a brief summary of what I learned:
- Earth loses 20,000 Ha of forest per day
- Major drivers of deforestation include: agriculture, wood, infrastructure expansion (mostly roads)
- Some other factors: economic, institutional, technological, cultural, demographical
- The Amazon Basin is nearly 20% deforested / already, mostly because the construction of roads leads to more roads and so on
- Overall, deforestation has slowed down in Brazil, but other countries such as Peru, Bolivia, Guyana, and Colombia still have significant deforesting of the Amazon
- 89,000 acres of rainforest were logged to complete New York City's boardwalk, as an example
- On average, we lose 380 species per day
So we went on a field trip to look at different types of forestry. Our first stop was a nursery. This nursery promotes plantations in the area. It's owned by families and produces 400,000 - 500,000 plants per year, 40% of which are for production. Many of the native species grown here are for reforestation, as well. Clients are usually landowners who buy around 8,000 plants. This nursery also gives away many plants for protection purposes. They grow 40 different species there, and the most abundant species varies per year. The native species stay around 4-6 months while exotic species stay anywhere from 2-7 months.
So after the nursery, we went to a couple different types of plantations: one was solely exotic species while the second was all native species of trees. There was a very clear difference, as the native species plantation looked "more" like a forest than the exotic plantation. There were epiphytes growing on the trees and more life in terms of bird species and animals in general.
After lunch, we stopped at a farm which has an intact forest on the property. There we learned about Reduced Impact Logging. This process is basically when a landowner can go through this long process of having certain sized trees removed from their property every 15 years of so, done so in a much more sustainable way with minimal damage to the environment.
So that night after dinner, we watched a documentary called Raids in the Rainforest. It talked about illegal deforestation in a national park of the Amazon in Brazil. Specifically, it talked about how one woman, with the help of her team, go about protecting the Amazon from deforestation. I would highly recommend watching this film, as it very clearly illustrates the daily problems conservationists face.
We had a discussion afterwards about the documentary, and I'm not going to lie, it was a tough one. We were all in a state of disappointment and there was a mutual feeling of hopelessness in the air. It's so hard to be so passionate about saving the environment when there seems to be little hope in saving it because a vast majority of people don't care. The solution is not simple by any stretch of the imagination. There are so many factors that go hand in hand with deforestation - economic, education, social. It was made clear in this film that poverty does not excuse people from their crimes. We don't excuse people from robbing a store because they are poor, so we can't excuse them from cutting down trees to make money, either. But the other layer to this problem is that many of these poor people are hired by wealthy people who hide behind the laborers of their small industry. Those are the people who need to be caught, not those who do the dirty work, as they are easily replaceable for those wealthy people.
Alan brought up a really interesting point that I want to highlight for all of you reading this:
Costa Rica and the United States both had to lose over 80% of their land for the general public to realize it needed to stop. Do we wait for over 80% of the Amazon to be destroyed before people realize we need to stop, or do we learn from our mistakes and change our ways before it's too late?
Some other ideas brought up during the discussion:
- Offer incentives to people to not cut down the trees
- Don't even bother with "sustainable" timber farming - pay people the $300 to stop cutting down trees (that's the amount people usually make with Reduced Impact Logging, on average)
- Put international pressure on Brazil and other South American countries to stop deforesting the Amazon
So think more about deforestation and speak out about making a change. Because if we lose all of our tropical forests, then we will have a lot more problems on our hands...
Back to Tirimbina
So on a more positive note, the rest of our time in Tirimbina was incredible. We went on a decently long hike from our station to the main part of the reserve, which took us 4 hours because we stopped to do species reports along the way. Towards the end of the hike, we had to cross a super long bridge and it was soooo cool!
We spent only 1 night in La Selva, but it was a very cool experience to see where many famous experiments have been done in the tropics.
After La Selva, we took another road trip to a place called Tirimbina, which is located a little further North of La Selva. We stayed here for 3 days. This place was adorable, and the place we stayed was located at the opposite end of the main part of the reserve.
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| View from our room |
The first of the three days spent in Tirimbina was a Humans in the Tropics day. That day focused on forestry, and we learned about many different stages and types of forestry. The night before we had a lecture as an introduction, so here is a brief summary of what I learned:
- Earth loses 20,000 Ha of forest per day
- Major drivers of deforestation include: agriculture, wood, infrastructure expansion (mostly roads)
- Some other factors: economic, institutional, technological, cultural, demographical
- The Amazon Basin is nearly 20% deforested / already, mostly because the construction of roads leads to more roads and so on
- Overall, deforestation has slowed down in Brazil, but other countries such as Peru, Bolivia, Guyana, and Colombia still have significant deforesting of the Amazon
- 89,000 acres of rainforest were logged to complete New York City's boardwalk, as an example
- On average, we lose 380 species per day
So we went on a field trip to look at different types of forestry. Our first stop was a nursery. This nursery promotes plantations in the area. It's owned by families and produces 400,000 - 500,000 plants per year, 40% of which are for production. Many of the native species grown here are for reforestation, as well. Clients are usually landowners who buy around 8,000 plants. This nursery also gives away many plants for protection purposes. They grow 40 different species there, and the most abundant species varies per year. The native species stay around 4-6 months while exotic species stay anywhere from 2-7 months.
So after the nursery, we went to a couple different types of plantations: one was solely exotic species while the second was all native species of trees. There was a very clear difference, as the native species plantation looked "more" like a forest than the exotic plantation. There were epiphytes growing on the trees and more life in terms of bird species and animals in general.
After lunch, we stopped at a farm which has an intact forest on the property. There we learned about Reduced Impact Logging. This process is basically when a landowner can go through this long process of having certain sized trees removed from their property every 15 years of so, done so in a much more sustainable way with minimal damage to the environment.
So that night after dinner, we watched a documentary called Raids in the Rainforest. It talked about illegal deforestation in a national park of the Amazon in Brazil. Specifically, it talked about how one woman, with the help of her team, go about protecting the Amazon from deforestation. I would highly recommend watching this film, as it very clearly illustrates the daily problems conservationists face.
We had a discussion afterwards about the documentary, and I'm not going to lie, it was a tough one. We were all in a state of disappointment and there was a mutual feeling of hopelessness in the air. It's so hard to be so passionate about saving the environment when there seems to be little hope in saving it because a vast majority of people don't care. The solution is not simple by any stretch of the imagination. There are so many factors that go hand in hand with deforestation - economic, education, social. It was made clear in this film that poverty does not excuse people from their crimes. We don't excuse people from robbing a store because they are poor, so we can't excuse them from cutting down trees to make money, either. But the other layer to this problem is that many of these poor people are hired by wealthy people who hide behind the laborers of their small industry. Those are the people who need to be caught, not those who do the dirty work, as they are easily replaceable for those wealthy people.
Alan brought up a really interesting point that I want to highlight for all of you reading this:
Costa Rica and the United States both had to lose over 80% of their land for the general public to realize it needed to stop. Do we wait for over 80% of the Amazon to be destroyed before people realize we need to stop, or do we learn from our mistakes and change our ways before it's too late?
Some other ideas brought up during the discussion:
- Offer incentives to people to not cut down the trees
- Don't even bother with "sustainable" timber farming - pay people the $300 to stop cutting down trees (that's the amount people usually make with Reduced Impact Logging, on average)
- Put international pressure on Brazil and other South American countries to stop deforesting the Amazon
So think more about deforestation and speak out about making a change. Because if we lose all of our tropical forests, then we will have a lot more problems on our hands...
Back to Tirimbina
So on a more positive note, the rest of our time in Tirimbina was incredible. We went on a decently long hike from our station to the main part of the reserve, which took us 4 hours because we stopped to do species reports along the way. Towards the end of the hike, we had to cross a super long bridge and it was soooo cool!
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| It was a suspension bridge that extended over a river and through part of the canopy and ended at the main part of the reserve (Photo courtesy of Dan L.) |
So after lunch at the restaurant in the reserve, we had a quick lecture and then had the option to go swimming in the river (which was about a 30 minute hike). That was a lot of fun, and we stayed for an hour or so until returning to the reserve. We took three vans back to the station where we were staying, and then after dinner we had a lecture on bats from Richard Leval.
The following morning was our last in Tirimbina, and they gave us the morning off before we left at around 10:30 to explore. So I went on a walk with Vian down the road to the farms. On our walk, we ran into some chickens and their chicks, and we played with them for a bit and they were just so cute!
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| Momma made sure we didn't get tooo close |
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| Just look at that little face! |
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