COSTA RICA: Planting the seeds of rainforest preservation
Copyright 2001 Associated Press
December 28, 2001
By KIMBERLY PHILLIPS, Register Citizen
TORRINGTON, Conn. - The dream of saving a Costa Rican rainforest was born in Jon Hutchinson's mind many years ago.
Since then, he and fellow Rotary Club members Cheryl Duey and Luene Corwin managed to secure more than $400,000 from a Rotary 3-H grant to establish a fund to educate the people living near the 5-square-mile forest.
That was a year ago. Today, the project still is growing. "We've stepped up and this is moving," Hutchinson said. "There's a surge of hope that hasn't been there before."
The forest of La Marta, located about 40 miles from San Jose in the Talamanca Mountains, was designated as a coffee farm in 1890, but abandoned during the late 1920s. The Latin American University of Science and Technology then took ownership of the land to use it for ecological studies.
Local villagers living near La Marta recently began to encroach upon the area, Duey explained, prompting Hutchinson, a longtime traveler, to get involved. That's when he conceived the idea of educating villagers in techniques that would help them without hurting the nearby forest.
"They had no prospects," Hutchinson said about the 35,000 villagers in the area. Rotary International awarded Hutchinson and the two women - all of whom since have left the Torrington organization for the Litchfield and Watertown groups - with a $357,700 grant that also included an additional $95,000 donation of in-kind services.
In the last year and a half, Duey and Hutchinson said, the program has made great strides in the areas of forestry, agriculture and community efforts.
"I see a surge of spirit and hope," Hutchinson said.
The goal for the first year of the three-year program was to produce 25,000 seedlings, Duey explained. Thanks to a partnership with the area's power company that figure was topped by 17,500 seeds for a total of 42,500 seedlings that one day, the group hopes, will mature.
Additionally, five model farms were established to test crops that could take over the area's reliance on sugar cane farming, they said.
Coffee, shade trees and bananas have been planted, in addition to 4,000 acres of a deep-rooted grass called viviter. The cultivation of mandarins and lemons is in the experimental stage.
In the village, area schools have held contests and drama programs, while 14 students were awarded with scholarships and a World Environment Day was held. Hutchinson is scheduled to make a five-week trip to Coast Rica in January.
"It's become a very big part of my life," Hutchinson said.