GlobalGiving.org: Connecting Forest islands in Costa Rica

Two-Year Progress

Roberta Ward Smiley — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:50:15 GMT

Planting day Nov. 27, 2009

“Connecting Forest Islands in Costa Rica”, David Alvarez’s property, was LRFF’s first project on Global Giving. We won the GG Open Challenge in August 2009 because of your generosity, donating more than $4000 from 50 unique donors. Giant Studios made the final donation to fund the project in November commemorating the finish of the film Avatar that they did the image work on.

The 2+ hectares were planted the following week, bringing the total trees LRFF planted in 2009 to 10,000. Daniel and the maintenance crew have been cleaning the property for two years and we feel that one more cleaning in January will be the last. I wanted to share the progress in only two years of this project. One year ago we passed by and found cow pies in the planted area. The neighbor’s cow had broken down the fence and been eating the grass and our little trees. The fence was repaired immediately and now one year later the trees are all growing, look………….

If you plant it they will come and stay. In the photo above you can see the connection already from the fence line to the forest in the background. Thank you for helping us implement this successful project.

This made 10,000 trees planted in 2009

The trees today, two years later

Fence running top to bottom constructed in 2009

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LRFF 2012 Calendars

KEEPING IT CLEAN

Roberta Ward Smiley — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 02:36:20 GMT

Maintenance cleaning 6 months after planting

A short update for all of you who gave so generously to the “Connecting Forest Islands, Costa Rica” project. Because of you we earned a permanent place on the Global Giving philanthropic website last year during the GG Open Challenge. The project was planted on the David Alvarez farm in Aguacate de Tilarán on November 27th, 2009. When we finished LRFF celebrated the planting of over 10,000 trees in 2009. The maintenance crew did one cleaning in January. This week, June 8th they cleaned around the trees again. It was amazing to see how fast they are growing and how many have survived. As they were walking back down the hill they saw a HUGE footprint of a Tapir in deep mud that they estimated must have weighed over 300 kilograms. An Ocelot print was also nearby in the mud. The wildlife are already moving in and taking of advantage of the area that used to be occupied by cattle. Enjoy the photos. You can spot the small trees amongst the grass. We will continue to show you their progress for the next two years as the crews return every 3 months for cleaning. Be sure to check out the other LRFF projects that we have posted on Global Giving, four in total. This coming Wednesday, June 16th, is a Matching Day at Global Giving. They will be matching all donations up to $1000/donor/project. Please help us to fund these other great projects and keep us planting. This is the rainy season, we have another 6 months left. So come on everybody and………….

KEEP US PLANTIN’!

Arenal volcano at dawn

No words for this photo

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Maintaining It

Roberta Ward Smiley — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:10:33 GMT

Project Hometree photo created by Giant Studios

This past Tuesday, January 5, 2009, the tree maintenance crew cleaned the “Connecting Forest Islands in Costa Rica” project property belonging to David Alvarez. The property is located in Aguacate de Tilarán and was planted on November 27th.

The baby trees are doing absolutely great! They didn’t need much cleaning since it has only been a little over a month since they were planted. The day was very cold up there, with rain, fog and high winds. As they cleaned the evidence showed that the weather must be like that most of the time because some of the baby trees were still in their nursery bags and one amazing little guy wasn’t even in his bag, with his roots exposed and all were living and growing. It is so wet and cool that they can survive in the air.

We got a far away shot of the reforested area. We could never find a spot with a view of the whole property before because we were always sitting right in it. One day as we drove up the road to Lago Cote we saw the property in the distance. Enjoy this photo, keep an eye on it as we post more updates over the next two years and see how the pasture fills in.

Thank you again to our reforestation partners, Giant Studios. Giant's motion capture technology is what makes the Na'vi come alive in James Cameron's movie, Avatar. The second photo is one they made of Hometree, from the movie, rooted in David Alvarez’s pasture. They are responsible for completing the funding for this project with their donation. They named it “Project Hometree” to commemorate the relationship between what LRFF is doing and the environmental message in the movie Avatar.

We want to encourage all of you to become involved with our cause in one way or another. Please post a comment here and make my day. This is one way to be involved if you can’t volunteer your personal time or donate.

Thank you all very much for your continued support and……LET'S GET PLANTING!!

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Reforested property from afar soon after planting

Planting David Alvarez's Biological Corridor

Roberta Ward Smiley — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:14:52 GMT

10,000 trees planted by LRFF in 2009

On Friday, the 27th of November we planted a 2½ hectare biological corridor on the property of David Alvarez in Aguacate de Tilaran, Costa Rica. The story with photos begins on Wednesday the 25th.

Bright and early Wednesday morning the eleven-man crew left LRFF headquarters to dig the holes for the tree planting on Friday. While they were digging the holes all of the seedlings were being transported to the site by small trucks from the La Reserva seedling nursery. When the trucks arrived at the base camp of the planting area a team of oxen, led by Mario of Aguacate, were waiting to transport the seedlings ½ kilometer further up the hill.

The crew put in a long day and didn’t return to headquarters until after 5 pm, but they finished all of the hauling and digging that day. They even carried the trees to the holes and placed them beside each. It was a beautiful day, bright and warm.

David’s property is at a much higher elevation than La Reserva, up in the very humid rainforest zone. On Friday the 27th some of the crew didn’t show up for one reason or another and so we were left with just five workers plus we volunteers, Daniel, Eduardo Gomez, Rusty Holzheimer and me.

The day dawned, dark, cold, rainy and windy. We all make sure we had our raingear and warm clothing. I even poured the rest of the coffee into the thermos, just in case.

We arrived at the site before 7 am and started planting. Oh, it was terrible. It was so foggy, windy and rainy that you couldn't see another person in the field nearby. But we still worked in the wave formation with Daniel and me bringing up the rear doing quality control. Around midday the weather cleared enough to make out a few more volunteers who showed up to help, but the truth be told, I don’t blame any other volunteers for not coming. It was a good day to stay in and read by a fire. Anyway our faithful Michele Glenn (LRFF secretary) and her husband Tim Johnson came to plant along with Sue and Brendan of Aguacate. They had to tread a very muddy road to get up to us. Thank you all, we will never forget the help you gave that day.

They left to go for lunch and the rest of us took a break up on the hill for lunch. Oh, we were so wet and cold with no shelter. It was a life-saver to have that thermos of coffee!!

After lunch we went out to finish planting the final section. All 2500 trees were planted by 3 pm with still about 300 holes yet to fill. We slipped and slid our way back down to the base camp and celebrated the accomplishment of planting over 10,000 native forest trees in the year 2009.

Today, December 2, 2009 the crew is back at David’s planting the remaining 300 trees and building the fence to keep the cattle out.

This project has been fully funded thanks to all of you and your great generosity. It will remain on the Global Giving website indefinitely so that I can continue to keep you up to date on what the corridor looks like.

Keeping you informed of your donations value is a founding tenet of the La Reserva Forest Foundation. It is of utmost importance for you to know that your donations are being used for the purpose you gave them.

Enjoy the photos and keep giving us your support because this……..

KEEPS US PLANTING!!!!!

The oxen hauling the seedlings

The LRFF wave planting in a clear spot

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GREAT NEWS!!!

Roberta Ward Smiley — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:15:23 GMT

David Alvarez-Our great ally amongst the cattlemen

GREAT NEWS!! Last Friday, the 20th of November we received the rest of the funding for the “Connecting Forest Islands in Costa Rica” from just one generous donation. The donors are Giant Studios. They have been working on the soon to be released (December 18th) film Avatar directed by James Cameron. In the movie the aggressive earthlings cut down the “Hometree” which is the central theme in the movie. The company wanted to find a cool tree planting organization to make a donation to and they found us here, on the Global Giving website. They have already given Jim Cameron a tree they had made for him when they wrapped the movie. They have commemorated this donation to LRFF by naming it “Project Hometree”. They have had wristbands made of recycled silicone and are giving them to all the cast and crew at the screening party.

A HUGE thank you goes out to Giant Studios for this great opportunity. It is so satisfying to know that the project is completely funded. Now I have been busy posting new projects on the Global Giving website. You will be notified of these in the next few days.

Last week the topographer, Alex Araya, his assistant, Omar Muñoz and Daniel did the survey of the corridor area. Alex has finished the map and we are ready to plant this Friday, the 27th of November. The planting area is about ½ kilometer from the entrance gate on the road, so all of the trees and fence posts will have to be hauled up by oxcart. On Wednesday the 25th the “boyero” (oxcart man) will start hauling the trees and posts up while the eleven-man crew digs the holes and places the trees near them.

David Alvarez has agreed to keep the cattle out of the adjacent pastures for a few more weeks. This gives us the opportunity to plant before we have to install the fencing. We won’t have to crawl through barbed wire fence to get where we are going.

Watch for the next update from the field and the blog I will post after the planting. There is so much to tell and many great picturesque photos on the way to you from us. The new projects will be up on Global Giving in the next few days giving all of you donors a special gift giving opportunity. You will be able to make a donation in honor of a friend or family member. I will send you all of the info very soon.

So, hey, everybody……………

LET’S GET PLANTING!!!

Engineer Alex Araya, topographer and Omar Muñoz measuring

The reward from Mother Earth, exquisite beauty

Progress Report - Connecting Forest Island in Costa Rica

Roberta Ward Smiley — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:26:45 GMT

Left hand forest on David Alvarez's property.

Progress Report Connecting Forest Islands in Costa Rica

Since posting our project on the Global Giving website there has been an upheaval of challenges, disappointments, heart warming experiences and changes.

From the very beginning to the end of the Global Giving Challenge the La Reserva Forest Foundation’s project, “Connecting Forest Islands in Costa Rica” was in the top 15 projects of the over 100 participating. Thanks to all of you generous supporters. We will never be able to thank you enough in words, but you can count on us planting tree corridors and preserving them, as long as you desire.

Within 2 weeks we had raised $3400 of the $10,000 total. I made a call to Ana Cecilia Vargas to tell her we were ready to move ahead on her corridor project and explained about the Global Giving Challenge, as we did before posting it. She surprised us, sorely, by saying “My children decided they didn’t feel would be convenient for them to have the corridor on what will be their property in the not so distant future”. This was a devastating blow!! My first impulse was to panic, but then, I remembered another local farmer who had agreed to have a corridor on his property, and it was about the same size.

Daniel and I went the next week to speak with Fernando Murillo, the owner. He owns 1000’s of hectares of farmland in Guanacaste and Alajuela province. Again, he said he would still have to discuss it with his children. When I called him back a few days later he said the same thing as Ana Cecilia, “My children don’t want it”. To me it is amazing that 2 hectares, reforested along a creek, would matter to them when they own so much.

I began to lose heart!!

By the 4th week of the Challenge we had qualified with over $7000 in donations and over 100 donors. All of us, and this means you too, who are integral parts of the LRFF felt an amazing sense of accomplishment and support from a wide community! Yet I still needed a project of the right proportions to replace the original.

As coordinator of the Lake Arenal/Tenorio Volcano Biological Corridor Commission I gave a presentation to members of the local municipality, cattlemen’s association and tourism association. It was my job to tell of our successes as a BC commission in the past 1½ years of our existence. Afterward the listeners were very enthused and two offered to have us build corridors on their land.

The first was a lady named Ana Cecilia Villalobos and it felt like synchronicity to me, she even had the same name of the original lady. Her husband, Jose Luis “Chocuaco” took us to the farm the next day. We all agreed on building the corridor with the size and cost that would match our budget. The tree corridor would connect two forest patches on their farm and help the animals to move from one to the other. This was on Friday and Monday we learned that “Chocuaco” had passed away suddenly on Sunday night. He was our friend for over 26 years. We were heart broken and didn’t feel this would be a proper time to move ahead with the proposed project.

The second person at the presentation was our friend David Alvarez. He has supported us ever since our first project took shape for preservation of existing forests via carbon credit payments. He is a participant in that project which is up for carbon sale through our friends at Global Climate Strategies ( http://www.globalclimatestrategies.com). He spoke to us on the presentation day expressing his desire for us to connect two, large primary forest on his property with a tree corridor of approximately 2 hectares. Last week we went for a look and it is perfect. Daniel took some photos (see photos here in progress report. We will be connecting the bare land in between the left and right hand primary forests) and we KNEW, this would be the new “Connecting Forest Islands in Costa Rica”. From past experience we knew we needed his formal okay to go ahead. He gave that to us yesterday and so we now have a full report to give you.

LRFF now only lacks about $2400 of the project budget. Our first disbursement payment will be sent on October 19th. We will immediately bring the topographer up to David’s to have the corridor portion mapped, separately, and then we can begin building the fence. The property is on the northern side of Lake Arenal, above Aguacate, where there is double the rainfall we have on the southern side. We are hoping to plant this before we get into the dry season, which begins in February over there.

There you have it. Thank you all, again. Without you there wouldn't be a project.

Next week David will take us back to the property, on a clear day. You will then see more and better photos of the corridor area, David and us. You will see the fences being built and the corridor planted.

Please let us know what you think. Comment or ask questions and we will respond. Make my day everybody and……..

LET’S GET PLANTING!!!

Right hand forest on David Alvarez's property.