Another week of Costa Rica in the books. This week we began to focus more on the ecotourism side of Costa Rica and considering how it ties into ecological sustainability in the country. In doing this we had a week packed with activities, even more so than last week I think.
We began the week by taking a trip to a “certified organic” pineapple farm and getting a tour of their fields. The reason I say “certified organic” is that, because they use a hormone to induce pineapple growth, they cannot call themselves truly “organic”, but they still do not use pesticides or any other chemicals that are harmful to the environment. During this tour we learned about the process of growing pineapple, and it is actually much more intensive than I originally realized. Apparently pineapple plants only produce a fruit when they thing they are in danger (from excessive heat, not enough water, etc.), so it is really hard to reliably predict when the plants will produce fruit. This is why they induce the fruit production artificially using hormones, because otherwise they would have to comb through the fields every day to check for pineapples that are ready, rather than being able to ensure that they will all produce at the same time. When we got back to La Selva, Dr. Libby gave us a lecture on the Costa Rican agricultural climate, the IMF, and how US government subsidies toward agriculture like rice and corn lead to “commodity dumping” into other countries and negatively affect their economies. Commodity dumping is when companies sell their products to other countries for less than they are actually worth, leading to the local farmers in those areas being unable to compete with the prices of these commodities from other countries. Normally this wouldn’t happen (because what company would sell their product for a loss?) but because the US government pays these companies to produce these products through subsidies, they are able to sell these products for less than the costs to produce them and still make a profit.
On Tuesday we went to a family-owned banana farm in the morning. When we got there, the small farm was such a sharp contrast to the huge and industrial mono-crop fields that we have passed when driving around Costa Rica. The woman who gave us a tour of the farm, which was just the size of the family’s property (probably no more than 2 acres), walked us through their rows of banana and plantain trees and talked to us about how they grow their bananas organically. We learned how many large-scale banana farms put these blue bags full of pesticides over their bananas when they start to grow on the trees, and this is to protect the skins of the bananas so they look good when they’re exported. This farm doesn’t use pesticides on their trees like the large-scale industrial companies do because they are harmful to the environment, and this family does not export their produce out of the country anyway. We also learned how banana trees are actually herbs, not trees, because they do not have bark or produce wood. It was extremely hot and sunny during the tour, and I think everyone was ready to sit in the shade and taste some of their homemade banana products by the time it was over. After we got back from the tour, a few of us decided to go on a hike for a couple of hours. At one point in the hike we had the opportunity to either go to the right and head back to the station sooner or go left and take a longer route back, and we decided to go left. This was a fatal error (depending on who you ask) because soon after we embarked on the path to the left it began to pour rain on us. None of us had any rain gear on us for some reason, so we had to just push through and accept our fates. Three days after this, my hiking shoes were still damp. (One negative about the humidity here is that nothing seems to ever dry once it gets wet).
On Wednesday, we spent all day at Tortuguero National Park. After driving for about two hours, we got onto a boat for another hour and a half or so, which drove us into Tortuguero through the river. We saw a good amount of wildlife during this trip, but the coolest thing we saw was a group of spider monkeys swinging along the edge of the forest where it met the river as we drove by. It was so cool to see them so active, since a lot of the times that I have seen primates on this trip so far they have been resting or relatively inactive. These ones were being very active, though, and we’re swinging around and dropping from branch to branch, and that was really cool to me. We then got onto another boat which took us to the town of Tortuguero, which is only accessible by boat and is a really small town (I think our guide said there is about 1,000 people that live there, but from what we saw of the town itself, it seemed to only stretch only about a mile, if that, along the coast. Here, we were able to do some touristy things like wall down the main strip of the town and also check out the beach. While in the town, we passed the local school as the children were out at recess, and for some reason that was the moment that it really hit me that the people that are here are living their entire lives on this small island, and many of the students in that school would probably never have the opportunities that I have had in my life.
Thursday we spent working on our research proposal presentation with our partners and then presenting them to the group. My partner for the research is Madison, and for our project we’re planning on studying how three different primate species (spider, capuchin, and howler monkeys) are affected by their proximity to anthropogenic edges of their habitats. To do this, we plan on collecting data regarding the density of these primate species in the forests of the Piro and Las Cruces research stations using the transect line method, and then also conducting behavioral observations on these primates when we encounter them. In doing this, we hope to be able to compare the density and behaviors of the different species between the edges of their habitats (within 100m of an anthropogenic edge) and the interior to get a better understanding of how they may be affected by deforestation. After presenting our research, we headed to Tirimbina where we saw a presentation about the history of chocolate and another one about bats. After the bat presentation, a worker showed up with some bats that he had just recently caught and held them up for us all to see. This part was pretty sad to be honest, especially seeing how scared the bats seemed to be during it, even though they then let them fly away unharmed.
On Friday we left La Selva and headed to Rancho Margot, a sustainable ranch, to spend three nights and learn about how they run the ranch. On the way, we stopped at a hot spring/resort and spent most of the day on Friday there just hanging out and relaxing. We got to Rancho Margot just in time for dinner.
On Saturday we went to Mistico Hanging bridges to do a guided nature hike. It was pretty cool walking across the hanging bridges and seeing the forest from a canopy-level point of view. After that we got a tour of Rancho Margot and they explained how they ran the ranch completely self-sustainably.
Sunday was spent at a waterfall and also walking around the town of La Fortuna!
Until next week,
Tate
Leave a Reply