How a Rainforest Grows

I flew back to Costa Rica this last Friday. I experienced some of the worst (or best?) turbulence I have ever felt flying over a Honduran thunderstorm. I was stuck with a middle seat, but it turned out not to be too bad. To my left (the aisle) was a 15 year old boy named Chris from Albaquerque. He was traveling with his grandma on summer vacation. To my right (window) was a law student named Greg from Univ of Washington. He was coming to Costa Rica to study international human rights law for the summer. The three of us talked the entire trip. It was the best conversation I have ever had on a plane. By the end of the trip, everyone around me asked for a Finca Project brochure. (Apparently I talk loudly.)

Now I am back down south in Aguabuena. There is a new group of students here and an Earthwatch expedition. I had the chance to listen in on Dr Karen Holl´s lecture to the Earthwatch group about reforestation and rainforest ecology. Taking from some of what she lectured, I wanted to give a little explination of how a rainforest grows and why reforestation is so important...

HOW A RAINFOREST REGENERATES (NATURALLY)

When a forest is cut down (by humans or naturally by storms, avalanches, mudslides, etc..) there are generally two ways it can grow back. One is through seeds and the other is through roots and stems that resprout. Most trees need to start from seed.

Many temperate (non-tropical) forests have seeds that are buried very deep in the soil. They can "hibernate" for up to hundreds of years and then one day resprout. This rarely happens in a tropical rainforest. In the tropics the seeds generally need to be fresh.

Up to 80% of tropical rainforest trees rely on animals of some kind to spread their seeds. Some seeds even require that they pass through the digestive system of certain animals before being able to sprout. Many of the seeds are eaten by birds and then pooped out in a different place later. An average troop of monkeys will disperse 50,000 seeds per week. Other animals will actually plant the seeds, by hording them and burying them, like the dung beetle and some small rodents. Again, some of these trees will only sprout if they are buried by a certain animals.

For this to happen though, there has to be an available resource of trees, seeds, and animals...So what happens when these structures are absent?

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM SOME FRIENDS

In Aguabuena, over 80% of the original forest has been cut down in the last 50 years. There are only a few stands of forest left, most have no monkies and only a few rodents. A bird has little interest to hang out in an open field long enough to poop some valuable seeds. Therefore there is little infrastructure in place for the forest to regenerate on its own.

That is why it needs a little help from its friends (us). We need to provide some genetics (seeds) and some structure (trees) to jumpstart the natural regeneration. Dr Karen Holl and Rebecca Cole are researching what the minimum structure needed to start this process looks like. There are over 1900 species of trees in Costa Rica. The idea is you dont have to plant every single species. If you have the structure in place, the seeds will come. If you plant them, more will come.

Rainforest and Cancer

I havent written a blog in a while because some unexpected things have happened since my last blog. I found out my mom has breast cancer. I flew home (to Texas) immediately and hired our friend, Harold, to take care of the farm and the seedlings while I was gone.

I have been in Texas for two weeks now, and I am going back down to Costa Rica this Friday. I have mostly been taking care of my mom, having deep talks with her about what breast cancer means and how we can fight it together. Ultimately, I think it has been a great experience. I had been on the farm for myself for the past 3 months because Brendan was taking care of his dad who also has cancer. The world is crazy. Now we are both battling cancer and trying to save the rainforest. This has really jumpstarted an idea we had already had of exploring medicinal rainforest plants. When I go back down, I am going to start doing alot more research. My mom has started a really good blog chronicling her battle against cancer, www.poetry-courage-cancer.blogspot.com

The other day I dragged my parents up Enchanted Rock to watch the sunset. At first my mom wanted to give up, but we kept saying, "just to the next rock". We made it. It was beautiful, and not too hot for Texas.



While I have been home in Austin, I have also had some good meetings with people and organizations. Let me give a little brief summary:

-Soup Peddler. Now we are linked up with the Soup Peddler. For those of you in Austin who buy soup from the Peddler, you can ask that 5% of your order goes to the Finca Project. You can order soup from www.souppeddler.com.

-The Wildthings. I had a meeting with this group of teenage girl environmentalists from Westlake High School in Austin. They are going to be one of our first students of our Cultural Exchange Program. Every year they raise money to go on a trip to help save the environment. This last year they went to Big Sur to help remove invasive plants. We had a great meeting at Wildwood cafe. They were very excited. It made me really happy to see young people (even younger than us) motivated to do good and excited for change. We are still looking for more high schools and groups of students to join our project.

-Audubon Society. I had another meeting at Mother's restaurant with my mom's friend, Burgess, and his good buddy, Bob. Bob is in the process of creating the Latin American committee of the Travis Audubon Society. He is very interested in issues concerning shade-grown and bird-friendly coffee. We had a great meeting and are looking forward to working with each other. Surprisingly, he brought me a copy of the documentary, Bird Song and Coffee: A Wake Up Call, a film about Aguabuena and the coffee crisis. It was an amazing coincindence. He was really excited about this documentary about our community "starring" all of my friends down there. I had gone to the first screening of the film in Aguabuena which had brought many of the farmers down there to tears.

Friday, I am heading back down to the finca. My short return to the United States has been really motivating. I have reports that over 50 of our seedlings have been transplanted to bags. I can't wait to go see how they are doing.

Paz y amor
Eliot

Sprouting

PLACE

On the last day of the world

I would want to plant a tree

what for

not for the fruit

the tree that bears the fruit

is not the one that was planted

I want the tree that stands

in the earth for the first time

with the sun already

going down

and the water touching its roots

in the earth full of the dead

and the clouds passing

one by one

over its leaves


This is a poem my mom sent me by M.S. Merwin who was recently descibed by the New York Times as a "Poet of Their Own". He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971. He and his wife live in a remote part of Hawaii where they are restoring an abandonned pineapple farm. I thought the poem was fitting because....

our first seeds have sprouted!!

The first seeds to sprout were the "marías" or Calophyllum brasiliense (I have also read they are called the Brasilian Beautyleaf). I was concerned that we were going to have trouble with these seeds because the condition of the seeds was not great, and they typically do not like to be stored for as long as we stored them. But at least 50 of them sprouted just this week. Marias are a very common canopy tree throughout Costa Rica. They are of a medium hardness whose wood is used for furniture, firewood, and sometimes in construction.

maría


The second group of trees to sprout were the "nogales" or Juglans neotropica or Central Amrerican Black Walnut. I just read that these are actually not the same as the North American Black Walnut, which I had assumed. However, these are not native to this region of Costa Rica, but have been brought here from Nicaragua. Now they are becoming very popular because they grow very rapidly. The more I start to look around, the more I see them. Many are planted in agroforestry systems and sometimes for shade for coffee.

nogal


The system we are using to germinate our seeds is based after the methods used in this region to germinate coffee seeds. We begin by dumping the seeds in a shaded seed bed and cover them with banana leaves. Once they reach 20cm or so, we then translant them into a plastic bag with richer soil. We keep the bags in a shaded area for at least 6 months and then transplant them to their final resting place. This week we are moving these seedlings into plastic bags, and we plan on transplanting them next April when the rainy season begins again.

Other seeds I have sprouting on the farm right now are Avocados (Haas), Tamarindos, various palms, and hopefully cacao. Ironically people claim that neither avocaodos, tamarindos, nor cacao will produce fruit here because it is too cold. However, every year people claim it is getting hotter, which I believe, so this is sortof a test for climate change. And if they dont fruit, thats fine, because they are all pretty trees.

Semillas Semillas Semillas

I just came back from another seed collecting mission in the isolated mountain kingdom of Las Alturas de Cotón. If you havent read my previous blogs about it, you should to understand the wierd politics and history of this company town turned sustainable ¿utopian? society.


This trip, I had two Panamanian Indian guides, Carlos and Javier. We took an old Toyota Landcruiser up the dirt roads to the boundary of Amistad International Park. We hiked up past the old dillapidated biological research station, up the trail to Cerro Chai.

Cerro Chai


The Biological Research Center (Las Alturas)


The seeds we collected were Chicarrás, Quiuras, and Jira Colorados. Chicarrás and Jira Colorados are both very large canopy trees with extremely valuable timber. I believe that it is now illegal to harvest these woods because of the threat of extinction. The Quiras are a smaller tree (still quite large) that produce a tomato like fruit that is eaten by birds and other small animals.

Chicarrá


Big Trees


While we were in the rainforest it started pouring. There was nothing to do but get wet and cold. We were nearing 5000 feet, so it gets cold. I tried to ask Javier what group of indiginous people he is a part of. He laughed. "Somos Indios." He told me. I said I know, but what kind. Like in the US we have Cherokees, Navajo, etc. There used to be Aztecs, Mayans, and Incans. He said the Aztecs are from Mexico, we are from Panama. Cristopher Colombus came over and called us "Indios" so we are "Indios". You know like "Indigenes". I asked him which he preferred, he looked at me like I was rediculus, "Indios" he said.

Javier is 17. He came from the Bocas Del Torro region of Panama. Indios can pass freely from Panama to Costa Rica without a passport. Many come as seasonal workers to work with coffee or to towns like Las Alturas (if there are towns like this anywhere else). Javier didnt finish high school. He didnt like the options that that type of education would lead to. When he was in Davíd, he found an advertisement to work in Las Alturas. Now he is a sort of apprentice to their reforestation project.

Reforestation Nursery at Las Alturas


Javier asked me if I was married. I said I was too young still, people in the States dont get married till theyre older. He asked me when I plan on getting married. I said, probably when Im in my 30s. He said that if people wait that long here, everyone will think that they are gay. He is only 17, and people give him a hard time for not being married yet. Most indios get married when they are 15. He doesnt want people to think he is gay. He needs to find a wife. He told me there is a guy in Las Alturas that isnt married and everyone says hes gay. The town doesnt have much to do but gossip.

Marcos Lobos

Marcos Lobos sells popcorn and cotton candy at all the rodeos in Coto Brus. His wife makes tamales. Marcos rides an old, beat-up motorcycle and has a green helmet. Once I tried to say in Spanish that he is "quite a character", but I made the mistake of calling him a cartoon character (characatura instead of personaje). My mistake was more approriate. His gray hair is alost completley white. He is a small man with a big belly. He smokes cigarettes, and shouts instead of talking. Marcos owns the farm next to us. He doesnt live there; he lives in town.

Today it started raining at 12:23 pm. As soon as it started, I heard the familiar shout/grunt announcing someones presence at the door. I should have realized it was Marcos. Marcos talks fast, and if you dont understand him, instead of slowing down, he just shouts louder. He wanted a break from the rain. We sat on the front porch. I made coffee, and we sat there for an hour and a half playing dominoes. He knew how to play, but I tought him the California way of making points in multiples of 5. He caught on fast. I was surprised at how fast he could count. I still won all the games though.

After playing for a while, we started talking about reforestation. If you havent read or dont remember, Marcos is the man who cut down our one old growth tree. I dont know if it was a joke, or maybe I misunderstood him, but he told me if I wanted to cut down any of his trees because they were too ugly, I could. I didnt really understand. He shouted it at me again. Maybe it was a way of making ammends for what he did, an eye for an eye a tree for a tree. I told him the only thing I was worried about was a poró tree that is close to falling on our house. He told me I could cut it down. Thanks Marcos.

We kept talking. He liked the idea that we would be rich one day after he died when we harvested the trees we planted. I started to explain that we arent going to harvest them, that we are trying to grow trees to help the environment of the region and the world. I explained the importance of tropical rainforests. He said he understood. But he was concerned about how to make money. He told me he thinks the cooperative is going to fail here, he has no faith in it. He sells popcorn and cotton candy. He said he maid $400 at the last rodeo. That is alot of money here. His rents his farm out to other farmers. The rest of it he lets go to weeds. He wants to sell it. He is asking way too much.

I am starting to like him. Julietta asked me if we smoked "la pipa de paz". "Tal vez," I said, Maybe. When he got up to go, I asked him if he minds riding his motorcylce in the rain. He said he has been doing it his entire life.

Pictures and more "characaturas" to come.

-Eliot

¿Fair Trade?

by Eliot Logan-Hines

Alot of consumers in the United States are becoming familiar with "Fair Trade", hoping to bring about a change in the treatment and payment to workers and farmers in "Third World" countries, by cutting out middlemen and establishing standards and regulations. "Fair Trade" is not an international standard, therfore to be certified in England requires a different beaurocracy than being certified in the US. This is taken from FairTradeUSA´s website, http://www.transfairusa.org/:



The principal criteria of Fair Trade certification are:

-Fair prices for farmers and decent working and living conditions for workers
-Direct trade with farmers, bypassing middlemen
-Free association of workers and co-ops, with structures for democratic decision-making
-Access to capital
-Sustainable agricultural practices including restricted use of agrochemicals

I want to give a brief overview of my visit to a certified "Organic-Fair Trade" coffee farm and cooperative in Nicaragua, and an explination for my disillusionment with any idea of "fairness".

I visited a coffee growing community in the mountains above Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The "cooperative" that processes and markets the coffee of these group of farmers is called Cecocaphen RL. It is not "fair" to look at this organization and current state of business without knowledge of the last 30 years of Nicaraguan history (or, really, 500) Please read my blog, A brief history of Nicaragua, to get a slight picture of the current problem.

Coming from a coffee-growing community in Costa Rica, with two of its natives, we all couldn't believe how poor these Nicaraguan farmers were in comparison. All of the houses have dirt floors. The village is wired with electricity but there are frequent black outs and brown outs. There is no tap water, only well water that needs to be filtered. The bathrooms were only outhouses, no porcelin thrones like Nicaragua´s "Rica" neighbor. No one owns a car or motorcycle, hardly any have bikes. But amid all this poverty, they grow "Organic Fair Trade" coffee.

Whereas in Aguabuena, where high pressured tap water poors out of (relatively) hot showers, and teenagers ride their dirt bikes up and down the main street every night complaining of boredom, only to go home and watch dvds and listen to reagetón on their big sound systems, in this now seemingly rich town in the country, Aguabuena, the farmers are "too poor" to be certified Organic ni Fair Trade.


A typical house in La Corona, Nicaragua.


The two Costa Rican natives, Julietta and Walter, on the streets of Matagalpa.


¿What is going on?

Cecocaphen (Matagalpa, Nicaragua) vs Coope Publos (Aguabuena, Costa Rica)

Cecocaphen is a second (or maybe third) level cooperative. I dont know how many middlemen end up being between the producer and the consumer (there were still too many to count). It pools coffee from the entire northern area of Nicaragua, comprised of thousands of small-scale farmers. Each of these smaller communities forms a smaller cooperative, that pools together to another regional cooperative, that then pools to the large Sol Cafe processing plant. The coffee is marketed by Cecocaphen to US and European importers. The coffee is shipped by boat from one of Nicaragua´s two ports as green beans. The office of Cecocaphen is a very pretty building up on a hill overlooking the city of Matagalpa. They have air conditioning, a full pot of coffee in the waiting room, skylights, and beautiful gardens.

Coope Pueblos, in our town of Aguabuena, Costa Rica is a small cooperative. There are about fifty coffee farmers that are members of this cooperative and pool their coffee together. It is then processed and roasted in a neighboring community, by a neighboring cooperative (I will write a history of the tragedies that have befallen these cooperative later). It is then marketed by a non-profit (CAN) based out of Santa Cruz, CA, and shipped straight to the doorstep of the consumer in the US or Canada. The office of Coope Pueblos is a modest building with its share of problems. The office is currently also an internet café and is in the process of being certified to sell coffee and espresso drinks.

It is hard to really know which farmers gets paid better. Being Fair-Trade, Organic certified, the Nicaraguan farmers should receive $1.41/lb ($US, everything is in US$). That is the going rate, even Starbucks´. In Aguabuena, farmers sell 100 pounds for $100. So it seems like the Nicaraguan´s got the better deal, but wait. The Costa Ricans (by Costa Rica, I only mean farmers of Coope Pueblos) sell theirs as whole berries with the red skin and everything. The Nicaraguans (and by this, I mean Cecocaphenés) do the first stage of processing the coffee, removing the berries skin, at home. This requires more work and more labor. These "mini beneficios" are found in almost every farmer´s farm. They then dry the beans, thus loosing water and weight to sell them for $1.41. So, I dont know which farmer´s get a better deal. But I can tell you that the Nicaraguans have dirt floors.

But then again, this isn´t Cecocaphen´s fault. The government of Nicaragua is beyond broke. The current ex president is under house arrest for embezzling the entire countries GDP and international aide, while running the country out of his luxurious home; not to mention, the history of economic manipulations by Uncle Sam. A cooperative like Coope Pueblos could never exist in Nicaragua. The Costa Rican government gives major economic help to "Cooperatives". Cooperatives can qualify for low interest loans and tax breaks, but in Nicaragua, nothing. So what does it mean to be a Cooperative in Nicaragua?

They have a democratic structure. Each mini cooperative has an elected representative that sits on the board of the regional cooperative which has an elected representative that sits on the board of Cecocaphen. In Nicaragua, to survive at all as a business you have to sell out to the big guys. You can´t function as a little town cooperative, you have to have play the major leagues. The image I will never forget after touring the processing plant, was coming back to the main office where we were given a lesson on aromas and flavors by the official taster/quality control of Cecocaphen. He was a little man with a moustache who slurped the coffee very loudly, swished it around in his mouth, wrinkled his nose, and spit it out in the trash can. He spoke of the hints of movie-theater-popcorn-butter and apricots. All I could think was that the women working the assembly line probably had no idea what either of those two things smelled like.


Tasting with Cecocaphen. Josh Mills with the dirty tee shirt is tasting coffee, the taster is in the background with his apron and moustache, Alfredo, a young coffee farmer, is in the foreground.



These women are sorting through coffee beans as part of Cecocaphen´s high quality standards. There are seventy women in this room. They work 8 hours a day with a 1 hour break. They get paid $3/day. This is Fair Trade.

And then we come back to Aguabuena, a now seemingly small and middle-class cooperative, where Walter ships out each weeks shipment of coffee. There are only a few people that work at the processing plant. Everyone here has free time to talk, even the coffee roaster while he is roasting up the French Roast. He jokes that only Estadounidenses like French Roast. The cooperative here doesnt have enough money to buy its fair trade certification. Most of the cooperatives here only sell within Costa Rica so there seems to be no rush. CAN is trying to help, maybe in time.

I don´t know whats fair. Cecocaphen doesn´t seem fair. But then again, I have no idea what the conditions are like in Vietnam and Brasil where the cheapest coffee is produced. Maybe this is fair. I don´t want to turn people away from Fair Trade. I think it is an important step. Maybe more important than anything is the change in the awareness of the consumer. We need to know what we are buying and where our $$ goes. But, if you want my opinion, I think you should buy from here, Coope Pueblos. I see the coffee get shipped out each week to each individual consumer. I know the people packing it. It feels like the fairest of the options.

If you want to order coffee from Coope Pueblos, go to http://www.communityagroecology.net/cart/

A little tour of the farm

I finally got a hold of a camera, so I took some pictures of the farm and Aguabuena, so hold on to your hats, and we´ll take a little walk around.

WELCOME TO AGUABUENA




Aguabuena and Coopabuena are a ten minute walk away from each other seperated by the Rio Salto. This hill (which is a mountain if you look at it from the ocean on the other side) rises above Coopabuena to an altitude of over 4000 feet. Santa Cecilia and Santa Teresa are two villages higher up the mountain, Santa Teresa being at the top.



To the north and east of here are the volcanic Talamanca mountains that you can barely make out behind the clouds. These mountains are much higher, rising from 7-1200 ft. This is the home of the nearly inpenetrable cloud forests of Parque Amistad shared by both Panama and Costa Rica. The mountains in this picture are in Panama.

Now to our farm.



If you follow this road down long enough you will make it to our farm.





The Reforestation Nursery (still under progress)



This week I began the germination of our first seeds. I planted over 6000 seeds. The two seed beds down in the background are the beginnings of our seedling nursery. These two beds contain two different species of trees.

1. maria
Marias are a common canopy tree of this region. The wood is of medium hardness and considered very valuable for furniture making among other things. Because of this, many have been cut down in this region. These trees grow relatively fast. In this seedbed, I planted 1200 seeds. I cover them with banana leaves to protect the seedlings from excessive sun and as an attempt to stop too many weeds from growing.



2. nogal

Nogales are a Nicaraguan black walnut. They are not indeginous to this part of Costa Rica. They grow very fast. They are becoming increasingly popular among the campesinos here because the grow so fast. Since we our goal is to use only indeginous trees for our reforestation projects, we have some reservations about this tree, so I am only germinating 300 seeds. These are in the bed next to the marias.



3. danto

Dantos are an endangered tropical hardwood. The wood is extremely hard and is excellent wood for construction because of its extreme durablitiy although it is difficult to cut through. Many people in this region dont know of these trees, or have forgotten about them because of their scarcity. These trees prefer to grow above 1000 meters in riverbeds. Thus, they make a nearly perfect tree for our project. The only drawback of this tree is that it grows very slowly because the wood is so dense. In this picture I have 4-5000 seeds soaking in water before I plant them in the ground.





After these seeds sprout, I will put each in its own separte bag to grow for at least another 5 months. We plan on begining the transplantation project in a year, next April or May. Next month, I am going to return to Las Alturas de Coton to collect different species.

THE WORM FARM



Thomas, our friend from Michigan, is a worm farmer that sells his products in famers markets in the US. He taught us how to cultivate worms. This is the system:




Compost goes in each basket, and as the worms eat their favorites, their poop becomes excellent fertilizer. They slowly move up to the fresher bins, leaving behind enriched compost. We keep the environment wet for them, and the excess water drips down and we collect this worm juice "jugo de lombrisas".



This stuff is extremely potent.

MORE PHOTOS....




This area of the garage serves a double function as a carpentry table (built by Josh Mills) and a resting place to read, drink coffee and swing in the hammock.

Im going to end the picture show with this picture out our back window.



More to come
Eliot

A Brief History of Nicaragua

La Independencia
In 1821, Nicaragua gained its independence from Spain along with the rest of its Central American neighobrs. The majority of the 1800s, Nicaragua was characterized by large land owners and an increasing US interest in transportation systems and fruit production. By the 1920s the US marines were playing the role of the Nicaraguan National Guard to protect US business interests. In 1936, the US withdrew its military presence as President Somoza was elected to power. Somoza set up a corrupt military dictatorship that would last over 40 years.

La Revolucion
In 1979, the Sandanista revolution finally ended the Somoza regime. The FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) initiated an agrarian reform, dividing up land from large land owners and giving it or selling it for extremely low prices to poor farmers. Like the story of many countries during this time, the United States would not tollerate this threat to international business, particularly to the large land owning American corperations like the United Fruit Company.

La Guerra
The Reagan administartion began a covert opperation that has become known as the Iran-Contra affair. The administration secretely sold arms to Iran to fight the Iran-Iraq war, and, with the money made on the sell of the guns, funded a right wing counter-revolutionary army (the Contras) to bring down the Sandanista regime. To Nicaraguans, this was known as La Guerra. The World Court finally ruled that this was against against international law. President Reagan publically refused to admit any knowledge of the affair, and then two weeks later made an address admitting his mistakes. Everyone indicted in the affair was eventually pardonned by the Bush Administration. The Contra army (trained by the School of the Americas) was designed to use terroristic tactics to force the public to elect a government that would be more economically favorable to the United States. It succeeded. After two years of starvation, the people of Nicaragua "elected" a government that promoted the neoliberal ideals of the Reagan-Bush-Bush adminitstrations.

With this background, it was an amazing experience to live up in the mountains above Matagalpa with farmers who had lived through these atrocities. When I asked them, they shared with me the horrors of two years of near starvation, standing in lines all day to maybe receive a scoop of rice or beans. Luckily, these were farmers who could mostly sustain themselves with their crops, but many still went hungry. They told me that the fighting never made it to their communities. Many of the boys would leave to fight in the lowlands near Managua, but most of them stayed up in the mountains to wait it out. I found it amazing that they were so hospitable to me, an American, whose government had funded this war.

More on Nicaragua to come.......

Isla Ometepe

Easter is called Semana Santa in Latin America, and the entire week before Easter is a huge celebration. It is almost impossible to travel during this time because every bus is packed-full of relatives visiting relatives, and buses stop running thursday-monday. In the mad rush to find a boat to the island I had to convince some Nicaraguan soldiers that I was on the list of chosen people to enter the boat they guarded behind chain link fences. The entire beachfront of San Jorge that sits on the western shore of Lago Nicaragua was packed with beer, big speakers, parades, and food vendors. Magically we made it on the boat.

The island is the largest lake island in the world, and the lake has some of the most unique biodiversity. Since it is so close to the sea, many fish swam upriver including bull sharks. Over the years they have adapted to the fresh water, agua dulce, and have become unique species. The sharks have sadly almost disappeared now due to overfishing. The island is home to two volcanoes, Volcan Concepcion (still active) and Volcan Madera (not active).

My friend Josh and I came with Yelena and Joey from CAN (Community Agroecology Network in Aguabuena). We came to visit the Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Islands Association. The org. is dedicated to aiding the island through various programs including buying and marketing the coffe from the cooperative to consumers in Washington, bringing internet services to the island, and creating an "escuela libre" for students of all ages. Thanks to the hospitatlity of its project managers, Peter and Devon, we had an amazing visit.

The coffe cooperative was hit hard by the difficult political climate of Nicaragua and world coffee market. Like the story of so many coffee towns, it used to be a thriving community but through political corruption and lowering coffee prices, it became a ghost town, now begining to be "revived" by tourism. After the 1990 elections that brought Nicaragua back to the path of neoliberal economics (if you dont know the story of the Iran-Contra affair, I suggest learning about it), the coffee cooperative was forced/coerced by the government (or the United States, World Bank, and/or IMF....) to take big loans that nearly threw them into abyssmal debt. You can check out the cooperative and buy coffee from them through www.coop-cdc.com.

It is very interesting to see the differences between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Climatically, Lago Nicaragua is drier than Coto Brus, the home of our finca, and much hotter. Culturally, Nicaraguans seem to have more pride, more of a sense of nationality probably due to their more turbulant history of revolutions and civil wars. And economically Nicaragua is a much poorer country.

We are heading up to Matagalpa to visit the coffee cooperative up there. Matagalpa is a sister community of Coopabuena as CAN (Community Agroecology Network) works with both communities. We are going to meet up with Julietta and Walter from Coope Pueblos. It should be interesting. I will keep yall posted.

Paz y amor
Eliot

There is a war going on

Yesterday, I saw smoke above the finca close to where our spring is. I ran up to see what was happening. Across the creek, on Marcos´land, there was a big fire. He was burning an entire hillside including the branches of the tree we sadly lost months ago. It was a horrible sight, muy feo. I felt like I was looking at a ravaged battlefield.

And after I thought about it, it is a war. The war that is going on is an economic war, a war between poverty and the environment. Marcos is using slash and burn methods to plant corn. It is fairly common practice around here. The price of coffee fell so low a few years ago that it has created a certain bitterness in some of the farmers. For people like Marcos, the land is here solely to extract resources from, and he is angry at it for letting him down with coffee. Next came cattle, until there was no more pasture grass left, and now all there is is to burn it and plant corn. You can see it in the way he swings his machete, and even in the way he walks.

Maybe this sounds hyperbolic, but if you could see (i dont have a camara) the sight where our over-grown, almost forest of a farm rises above this burnt land, you would understand what I mean. It is a war. I was so upset last night, I had a hard time sleeping. I cant blame Marcos though. The problem is so much bigger. It is the coffee market, the coffee coroporations. It is even bigger than that. It is our entire economic system. When Marcos looks at the land he sees money, whether its a tree, or a charred piece of land to plant corn. And by Marcos, I dont just mean Marcos.

I felt hopeless and helpless. We came here to try to help to change this problem. When I was dreaming of moving here, I never actually saw the problem face to face. I never had to deal with it. But as I run up and down our farm to check the level of our spring, and I am confronted with this huge fire that threatens to burn me and all of our land, I realize that I have to face it. And its scary.

But then there are farmers like Umberto and Roberto who are having a meeting here in a few minutes with their group of organic committed farmers. And they are trying to change the ways here. They were hit hard by the coffee crash too, but they value more than money. They value the life and longevity of the land. It is inspring to be with them. And when I see Marcos, I have to restrain myself. I invite him over for coffee and I try to cultivate a friendship. And I realize that this is why we came here, and its going to be hard work.

-Eliot

Reforestation Project #2

Yesterday, I went exploring with William Mendez down on his creek bed to talk about reforestation. The creek that his property sits atop is the same creek that passes by our finca. He explained to me that the coffee cooperative used to use this creek as a waste drainage for the water used to rid the coffee beans of their cascaras (skins). The coffee cooperative has since gone out of buisness due to the devasting economic impact of the recent crisis in the coffee market. The creek is still very polluted. We have decided to make this our second reforestation project. Between our farm and his, there are two farms that we need to gain the support of their owners. I think that it will be fairly easy to convince them. The beauty of reforesting water ways is that hardly any one is using the land for farming or ranching, and the benefits of erosion and pollution control are hard to pass up. I gotta go catch the bus.

Paz
Eliot

The Seeds

Las Alturas de Cotón is an old logging/coffee village at the foot of the volcanic Talamanca mountains. The town is at 1300 meters, so the air is crip and cool at night. It is not a tourist town. You have to have permission to enter. It is owned by an Estadounidense (gringo). When my bus entered the last gate there were only three of us left on the bus: the bus driver, his girlfriend, and me.

The town is very strange. There are 140 people that live there, most of whom are indigenous. Their electricity comes from a gasoline powered generator that only gives power from 5pm till 9pm. The land is adjacent to the Parque Amistad which is the largest protected area in Central America. The land that the town sits on is the largest privately owned forest in Costa Rica. The owner, Addison Fischer, is trying to make the town as sustainable as possible. They have a large reforestation project, planting 60,000 trees a year. He strongly prohibits any minerals or vegetation leaving the town, so the economy of the town solely relies on his aid, paying the 140 workers every month. The town has the feel of a tropical kingdom from some time long passed. Like I said, this town is strange.

We were first introduced to the town by Kathrin Lindell, the avian ecologist, whom we helped with the Earthwatch expedition. We met Fernando, the caretaker, who then invited us to come back this week to learn how they collect their seeds for their reforestation project. Since Brendan has gone back to the US, I went alone.

While I was there, there happened to be a woman´s workshop on building cob (clay, sand, and hay) houses. The class was being taught by Becky Bee, whose book we ironically bought right before we moved down here. I felt slightly akward because they were trying to have a completely isolated womens workshop, and I felt that I kept intruding. But they were all very nice women who were very interested in our project. They invited me to dinner everynight, and it was nice to have some gringas to talk to.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early had coffee and breakfast, and headed out at 8 with my crew of reforesteros. There were 4 of us: Roberto, the driver; Clemente, the tree expert; Carlos, his assistant, and me. They are all very campesino, so it was a challenge to communicate with them. They asked me how to say bad words in English, but there favorite thing to say was ¨beans and rice¨, which for some reason cracked them up. The first seeds we collected were Dantos. I thought we would have to walk through jungle to find them, but they were all on the road. We collected "un pichaso de semillas" (a shitload of seeds). The seeds of the Dantos are like big grapes, they taste sweet. Danto is a tropical hardwood that grows at higher eleveations. Apparently the wood is worth alot. We also collected Nogales (Nicaraguan black walnut) and Marías (another valuable tree for lumber).

I felt very lucky to be able to go there. It really is an incredible place. And I am so excited that we finally have our first seeds (probably over 1000). We will begin germinating them in May and then they will be ready to plant in 6-10 months. We already have our first reforestation project. We are going to be working with the coffee cooperative here, Coope Pueblos, to recuperate the Rio Salto, one of the main rivers in Aguabuena. As soon as I got back, I had a meeting with Walter from Coope Pueblos and Roberto Jiménez. They were very excited. They truly appreciated our efforts to help. It almost brought a tear to their eyes when they started talking about the changes that are taking place in "la mente de la gente". They feel that one of the most important aspects of the project is changing the consiousness of the people.

More later, I gotta go

Paz y amor
Eliot

Battling the Bats....and other difficulties

We finally moved into the farmhouse! But of course ther are some problems......

THE BATS
There is a bat that lives in our house. It poops from the same rafter every night, in the same spot of one of the bedrooms. The first night we moved into our house we were scared to sleep in that room because we were told that it could make us sick, or more likely would suck our blood. So we sleep in the living room.

We were told to tie a red shirt to the spot where it shits and to surround the house with garlic because bats are scared of red and cant stand garlic. I thought maybe vampire and bat mythologies were getting mixed up, but we had to do something. It worked....sorta. The bat got confused at least. Instead of its favorite spot, the bat pooped on my bag. But I think that our psychological warfare is going to win in the end, altough you can still hear it batting it wings against the window when it gets trapped.

THE WATER
The other day we ran out of water. We had to jog our memory from physics classes about fluid dynamics, sipehns, and water pressure. Its hareder than we thought to rely on spring water for everything in the height of the dry season. We have to be extra mindfull on how we use it. And its DIRTY. We have to treat it to drink it. Eventually we are going to need a water filtration system.

THE FURNITURE
We have no furniture. Flor and William gave us a bench which is awesome. But we have no table or any other seats. We just use our matresses that sit in our living room because we are still scared of the bat. Today we are going to start building furninture. We will have pictures up soon.

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Anyways, Brendan is heading back to the States this weekend. Then I (Eliot) will be here all alone. We should have some pictures up when Brendan gets back.

Pura vida
Eliot and Brendan

The Birds

This last Saturday, Brendan and I were lucky enough to be invited to join the biologist, Dr. Kathrine Lindell, to assist in an Earthwatch expedition looking for the presence of birds to assess the success of experimental restoration/reforestation plots created by Dr. Karen Holl.

We woke up at 4:30 so that we could be out in field by the time the sun rose when birds are most active. We set up nets to catch the birds to tag them for future studies. The site where we were working was one of the weaker plots that Kathrine was working with. We only caught seven birds in five hours. Kathrine´s hypothesis was that it was too windy in this one area for the trees to grow well.

Either way we were excited to see the birds we caught. In the end we only caught three species, a cherry tanager, a Tenessee warbler, and a snow-bellied hummingbird. We couldnt believe that the tiny little warbler had flown all the way from its nesting site in Alaska. I had always heard about migratory birds, but its a very different experience when you hold one in your hands.

Hopefully we will be able to post some pictures up soon, but the internet is very slow down here. We have to run to catch the bus. More to come.......

Paz y amor
Eliot and Brendan

The Begginings

Brendan and I (Eliot) have been in Costa Rica for a month now and everything is coming along great. We have been staying at William and Flor´s house. Flor has been cooking us her wonderful meals. Its been great to be back with the family. Tomorrow our house will finally be ready to live in, although we still dont have any furniture or appliances.

OUR FIRST DAYS
When we first got here we were told that the roof our our house had been stolen, a window broken into, an old sink stolen, and a fire built in our living room. We werent too surprised. It was probably some teenagers that dont have much to do at night. We needed a new roof anyways, so the theives had only helped to get rid of the old one.

What we hadnt expected that first day that we walked down to our farm was that our one beloved old growth tree had been cut down by a neighbor to make a few thousand dollars for the lumber. It took us a second to realize what had happened. At first I kept thinking I saw the tree, but when we finally bushwacked our way to the spot where the old tree used to stand, it was just a stump.

Not only had our neighbor cut down the tree, but he had also fenced off the common spring we share with barb wire on our side of the creek that divides our properties. We were depressed. It greatly affected us. But at another level it reminded us of why we were here, to plant trees and help relieve the economic pressures that lead to deforesestation. Since that tree was cut, the spring that pours out from under its stump has dropped 50 percent. Trees are so important to maintain clean and healthy water systems.

The next day we were working on our roof, and our neighbor, Marcos (who had cut down tree), came up to us. We had never met before. He immediately began telling us very adimantly that our garage was built on the public road (calle publica). We remained very calm, trying to explain that the garage has been there for over fifteen years and that there was no where past our house that one could drive because it dead ends into a very steep hill just past our garage. We had to hold back from accusing him of cutting down our tree and fencing off the spring. We politely agreed to talk to someone from ¨la municipalidad¨ to settle the dispute.

The next week we met with a man from ¨la municipalidad¨ and Marcos. We agreed that while our garage is technically in the "calle publica", it is old enough to remain there as long as we were just reconstructing the house, not building a new foundation. We also agree that the spring is both of ours, the fence is to be in the middle of the creek. Marcos understood that the tree was ours but he claimed that the wind blew it down (hard to imagine).

Since then we have more or less made friends with Marcos. He has agreed to let us plant trees on his side of the fence to help restore the spring. That spring is now our only source of water. When we tried to get city water from AYA, they told us in a very confusing labyrinth of latino beaurocracy that we would have to buy new pipes for the entire neighborhood. It would have probably cost over 1000$U.S. So we just decided to use our spring.

So our house is almost ready to live in. We picked out tiles. We have new windows and doors. We are creating a biodigesting toilet that will capture the methane from our ceptic tank to power a stove for us to cook from. We have never heard of anyone doing this with human manure, so its a little bit of an experiment. We are excited to see how well it works. Since there are only two of us here right now, we will have to suppliment the ceptic tank by adding the manure from chickens, goats, and cows.

We have already made connections to start getting seeds for our reforestation nursery. Next month Brendan is going back to Oakland to make some more money, and I am going to go seed gathering. I already know it is going to be a great story, so youll have to keep tuned in.



This is a picture of the remnants of the tree we lost.

Paz y amor
Eliot and Brendan