Costa Rica Trip Spring 2000

Prior to my trip to the rainforests of Costa Rica I had read many

articles in magazines and textbooks about the variety and quantity of animal

species I would find in the rainforest. I also had seen many TV programs

regarding life in the rainforests, with parrots, hawks and finches flying in

and out of the canopy, monkeys chasing each other through the trees, sloth’s

and snakes creeping along tree trunks and jaguars and ocelots sneaking

through the groundcover. I really had expected to just walk into the forest

and on every limb, branch and twig I would see these animals in their 100’s.

However, this was not so, I can still remember Diana’s’ words from one of

the lectures that she gave us. She said that when you watch the videos of

rainforests which only last about a half hour, yes there is a multitude of

species that you see in the video, and they are all found in the rainforest,

however it takes approximately three years to make a half hour video, so

everything is condensed.

However, I did see a wealth of diversity of species the likes I had

never seen before. Prior to my trip we had visited three habitats in the Bay

Area: San Francisco Wildlife Refuge, Sanborn Park and Moss Beach, and I

had also visited two urban parks William’s Street park, San Jose and Golden

Gate Park, San Francisco where I had seen 20 different species of birds and

2 species of mammals. However, in Costa Rica I saw 49 species of birds and

8 species of mammals. I cannot count the number of insects I saw in Costa

Rica nor the plant species as this quantity was overwhelming. There was an

endless variety of both in Costa Rica.

Another thing I learnt on the trip, was how humankind can be so

destructive. Traveling via bus through the countryside I could smell burning

vegetation as the farmers burnt the remains of their crops, often I could see

clouds of smoke hovering above the horizon. I could see first hand island

fragments of forests surrounded by farmland. Even from vistas from the

skywalk I witnessed deforestation at operation. How sad it was to see

something as beautiful as the rainforest on one side of you and cut down

trees on the other side. Even the white faced capuchin monkeys at Ecolodge

displayed their aggression towards us, a fear of humankind they have learnt

from people hunting them and chastising them. Whereas in Cabo Blanco

where the monkeys have very little contact with humankind at least not bad

contact, they did not show any signs of fear towards us. When will we learn

to live in harmony with all other species.

The most important thing I learnt from the trip to Costa Rica is how

can people in a developing country like Costa Rica, which has a limited

infrastructure with regards to roads and housing and where people have

limited material wealth like cars, televisions, computers and VCR’s, items

which we take for granted in the developed world. How have these people

learned to save and preserve such a large portion of their country and

maintained such a high quality national park system yet we here in the

developed countries are still destroying our natural ecosystems. We only

have to look in our own State of California, where we are still cutting down

the last remaining primary redwood forests. Tourism which brings in a huge

revenue to Costa Rica has been strictly controlled so as not to destroy the

environment, they know better than to have huge commercialized vacation

megaresorts which would degrade the landscape. Costa Ricans have put

short term profits aside and planned for long term survival. They have

learned to live with little material wealth, their wealth is found in the

peoples friendliness, where socializing is very important and education and

medical facilities have been given so much priority that Costa Rica has no

funding for military purposes. It even has a higher literacy rate than the

USA.

Costa Ricans value the land, the wealth of life it supports in biodiversity

and want to save it and share it will all visitors to their beautiful country.

How enjoyable and educating it was to walk through the forest and

observe nature in all its beauty. The birds singing in the canopy, colorful

butterflies dancing in the wind, vibrant flowers bursting forth with all their

glory, no book or classroom experience can simulate this effect. How

organisms interact with each other and are dependent on each other for their

survival. I only hope and pray that the lack of rain we experienced while we

were there was not a direst result of global warming, we were told 20

species of frog have become extinct at Monteverde, but with a change in

weather pattern nobody knows how many other species will be affected in

this paradise.