I can’t confess to know why these palms are dead, but when we saw them from the road while driving from Dominical (the second place we stayed) to Quepos (a more populous center of commerce and tourism) I couldn’t help take note. The reason being that I found myself repeating a question to people in most places I went.

“Is any of this clear land actually natural pasture or was it cleared?”

I got two answers:

Answer 1:
Much of this land was cleared for cattle grazing. Is this local beef? No it is beef that is for the fast food markets. That’s right – so that the millions served at McDs or Burger King can have their Big Macs and Whoppers we have clear cut rainforest.

Answer 2:
For the old fruit plantations. Costa Rica was brought into the industrial era through large scale agricultural corporations’ palm, coffee and fruits interests. Some of these persist, but some have collapsed or been sold. I have a romantic idea that the trees here are being reclaimed by nature after one of these have collapsed.

A few considerations on this land use. Costa Rica is in a period of reforestation. Many landowners (much of them foreign) as well as the government of Costa Rica, are making great strides in reforesting this land. There are large national parks and land trusts being donated and protected through private and public means. For once you can see people learning from other’s mistakes as the people who have stepped forward to protect and reclaim the ecosystem in Costa Rica look at other places in the world and recognize that unless care is taken Costa Rica will also fall into environmental collapse.

Like what you might ask. Well like the loss of the coral reefs around Costa Rica. The receding reefs have started coming back after years of reforestation work. You see all that land cleared for fruit and beef needs begins to erode if the vegetation that has lived on it for thousands of years is not holding onto it. As a rainy place, it doesn’t take long for all those minerals and acids in the soil to was into the ocean and this kills the fragile but life filled reefs.

Similarly, animal species are threatened. Like the spider monkey. The spider monkey is one of several monkey species in Costa Rica and one of the species that is an herbivore. The spider monkey relies on a variety of leafs to get it its full nutritional needs met. In addition it needs that variety to be close enough that the small troops – complete with babies and elderly monkeys in tow – can make their rounds daily. This is at the heart of the reason behind the idea of biodiversity and our need to protect the finer balances that sustain diverse ecosystems. The less variety these monkeys have to choose from the less nutrition they have, the less nutrition the more susceptible to disease and injury they are. I will tell you about my experience with monkeys (including pictures) in my next blog (which I promise will be more inspirational and fun filled) but suffice it to say that one of my new mantras is going to be “any enemy of the monkeys is an enemy of mine”. I haven’t had a lot of enemies in my life, but the connection I had with these monkeys made me feel like mother cat whose precious little kittens are being threatened. Note razor sharp claws extended.

So to see a field of palms being reclaimed by bromeliads and ferns (note these are parasitic plants that will eventually use enough biological material from their host tree to collapse even thick fibrous trees such as palms) does my heart good. The beautiful blue clouded sky behind the beautiful restorative actions of nature. I mean what could be a better view?