by Rowan Eisner in Monteverde

Over the past couple of years, the Monteverde Conservation League Information Center has been undergoing a transformation to encourage people to come to the Children’s Eternal Rainforest (CER). While located on the road to Monteverde and the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, most visitors head to the Reserve to go zip lining but relatively few venture into the CER.

The Info Center’s transformation has been gradual, and has drawn on contributions from many sources, both local and international. Some of the enhancements include a beautiful mural painted by local artist, Bernal Gerardo Rojas, polished wooden floors and products for sale. Books by Rachel Crandell about the CER, Willow Zuchowski’s botanical guides and MCL’s current president Mark Wainwright’s mammal’s guide are featured. There are also local crafts and t-shirts for sale. The question being asked is how to get people to venture inside?

CER’s Updated Info Center

The Info Center has a stunning view of the gulf and many people come into the car park just to look at the view. Last year, Bob Howe organized a fundraiser at his grandson’s school to pay for a sign which explains the view of the CER, and hikes you can take there. It also guides visitors into the Center for further information.

In March, a number of international interns worked on beautification and improvement of the Center. When interns come to work on projects they bring about $1,000 each which funds the implementation of the project they are working on.

Their projects included: creating a new ‘Children’s Eternal Rainforest’ sign for the road connecting the Center with the forest it protects, and enhancing the car park and entrance areas with gardens contained by recycled bottle walls. The native plants for the garden were provided by the Pronativas nursery located in the CER. A group of volunteers from Costa Rican Trails, an eco-tourism company, planted the garden. Another group came last year and planted a garden on the other side of the building and it is now quite well established with hummingbird and butterfly sightings.

Another intern worked on a beautiful interpretive display for the CER composed of three signs printed on glass explaining the biodiversity of the area, MCL’s conservation efforts in the CER and the need for rainforests.

Sarah Dowell, a local nature artist with the help of Margie Howe, painted a tapir (the symbol of the CER), onto the front of the building. A display frame has also been installed on the front of the building which can be used for rotating art contributions from the community. Currently it is showing the winners of the schools painting contest from the Eco Fair. And MCLUS has bought a photo display frame to mount on the wall to show stunning pictures of what can be seen in the CER, visible from the sign at the view outside.

What more could be done to encourage people to visit the newly updated Center? One possibility would be to create a cafe on the veranda that would take advantage of the stunning view – a full commercial kitchen already exists in the building. Another possibility is to install an engaging, world-class conservation exhibition explaining the importance of the forests and how they are conserved. These are just a few of this year’s internship proposals. In the meantime, MCL is very grateful for all the volunteers who have made these upgrades possible!

by Rowan Eisner in Monteverde

You may have read in the May MCLUS blog entry about the Eco Fest. In June, MCL held a three-day event to continue to mark our 25th anniversary, but also marking World Environment day and International Year of the Forests. The ‘Feria Ambiental, Cultural y Deportiva’ or Environmental, Cultural and Sports Fair included presentations, games, sports, plays, workshops and music. The fair kicked off with a ‘clean up Monteverde’ campaign. Armed with sacks, people from the schools, the cheese factory and the reserves started at the Cerro Plano and the Santa Elena schools and cleaned up all the trash they could find, till they met up in the middle with 10 sacks full, four of which were recyclables.

Many organizations were represented including the local cheese factory and the other local reserves, the Cloud Forest Reserve and the Santa Elena Reserve, which is run by the local high school. Fair-goers learned to make beautiful wallets and gift bags out of recycled materials; had the chance to take a mountain bike tour; while those less adventurous took a workshop on a pod of stationary bikes.

A member from the Monteverde Institute gave a talk on water quality. MCL explained the life zones and importance of biodiversity in the area which went well with the talk from the Bellbird Biological Corridor explaining the need to provide passage for migratory endemics. The Monteverde Reserve talked about two of their projects. The first of these aims to reduce plastic bag usage through reusable bags and highlights the impact of disposables on the environment. The second is a recycling project, in keeping with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle principles. There was a drawing contest with local schools and the results displayed at the fair as a slide show. The winning originals were displayed in the permanent case on the front of the Info Center. One musical highlight was hearing Insax, the classically trained saxophone quartet from San Jose – what a delight to to hear them in Monteverde!

by Rowan Eisner in Monteverde

When you’re busy maintaining trails or patrolling for poachers in the CER every day you don’t necessarily think to tell anyone when you see an animal. But for those of us who aren’t in the forest every day it is really special and we would like to know! So Wendy Brenes, MCL’s information coordinator, recently asked all the guards and maintenance staff to send in reports of sightings and the reports have started to come in. In the last few months, Alonso Gonzalez, Protection Staff and Forest Guard and his workmates have had a couple of sightings.

Two wonderful animals seen and photographed in the CER!

The guards managed to get this nice picture of an oso hormiguero (literally, an anthill bear) which was taken near the Pocosol Station on a trail. In English it is a northern tamandua (Brazilian indigenous Tupi for ‘ant trap’) or a collared anteater.

Active by day or night, some tamanduas prefer life in the trees while others are more ground-based. They mostly eat ants, spicing it up with a few bees, though the ground-lovers get more termites. They avoid ants with serious defenses like army ants and leaf-cutters. They raid a nest and quickly lick up as many ants as they can before the soldier ants can come to the defense of the nest. But with a 40cm tongue they still manage to get about 9000 ants a day, though they might have to wander over 1000 acres to find them.

The other sighting was a rare Tapir seen by five of the Forest staff not far from Pocosol station. We knew that there are tapirs in the Forest because the mammal monitoring program has collected casts of their extraordinary 5” three-toed footprints, and so MCL chose the Tapir and its baby for the CER’s logo. But people hardly ever see one. These are the biggest animals in Latin America. They can be active day and night and love water. They eat plants and fruit with the help of their prehensile nose, and biologist Mills Tandy broke open a scat last week and out ran a live hermit crab, but it was probably eaten by accident!

MCLUS President Laurie Waller had an opportunity to interview MCLUS board member Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy on two separate occasions.

In this brief chat Dr. Lovejoy shares his views on the environment and protecting biodiversity for a more livable planet.

Find out more about Dr. Lovejoy on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lovejoy.

And here Dr. Lovejoy shares his hope for the future.

Bob and Vin are off on an epic mission for The League today. They are going to collect two over-sized hydro power generators and take them to San Jose to see if they can swap them for one that would be the right size for San Gerardo station.

Bob Law is an MCL founder and board member and Vin is the maintenance manager. Together they are going to Rancho Margo, an ecotourism venture neighbouring the Children’s Eternal Rainforest and an overnight stop for hikers doing the 2-day trail from Monteverde to Arenal. Rancho Margo is self-sufficient in hydro power but this generator is excess to their needs and they are donating it to MCL.

Then they will go to San Gerado where they will pick up the huge generator there. You may have read in a previous post that originally there was a community at San Gerado that needed power but now there is only one family left as farms have become part of the reserve, the power and the maintenance of the existing generator is too much. Picking up the generator from San Gerardo is no easy feat. Access to the station is rough for the quad bike without carrying a generator and it is still a kilometer down the river from the field station where there is no access for a vehicle. I hope this isn’t too much for Bob – it’s only a few months since he had surgery.

Once they have both generators, they then start the 4-hour journey to San Jose where there is an area with many second-hand shops specialising in refurbished motors and generators. There they will hawk their generators door to door to see if they can swap the two big generators for one the right size for San Gerardo.

They thought they might make it back the same day, but given that it’s 8 hours of driving on a good day, I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up spending the night somewhere. When I find out how they went, I’ll let you know.

Last week I posted about releasing rescued sloths in the reserve, so I thought this week I’d tell you a bit about sloths.

The sloths we get in Monteverde are the two-toed type, or it should be two-fingered, because all sloths have three toes. They spend almost all their time alone in the trees, being most ungainly on the ground. Why then, do they come down once a week to pee and poo? No one’s figured it out, especially as it’s pretty risky. That’s when they can get killed by dogs. But even so, they take the time to bury their waste – go figure!

Spanish speakers call them perezosos, meaning lazy, so they seem to also think of them that way, but actually they are the most efficient mammal in the forest. They are largely leaf-powered and weigh about 6kg but ⅔ of their weight can be their stomach contents. They conserve their energy by having the lowest body temperature for a mammal. So in the morning they have to sunbathe on top of the canopy like lizards to get their digestion going. This makes them prime targets for harpy eagles, which can get through 26 sloths in 10 months by feeding them to their young. But luckily for the sloths there are very few harpy eagles left in Costa Rica.

The sloths, however, are pretty common – they only need about 6 acres each, but you don’t see them much. They have specially grooved hair for growing algae which makes them green and difficult to see as they hang out in tangles of vines during the day so they can feel them move if anything’s sneaking up on them. If you’re hiking with a guide and they spot a sloth during the day when they’re pretty still it can be quite hard to even see what it is they are pointing to. Also, they’re fierce and tough if anything did catch them and if they get shot by poachers they keep hanging on and often don’t fall to the ground. But they are suffering from loss of habitat and they can also die of cold in long wet periods. But their most common enemy in Costa Rica is power lines. Still, they can live till they’re 32 in captivity.

The one that was released recently was pregnant and it will take her 11½ months to give birth. The baby will stick around her mom for two years and will be able to have babies of her own at three. There aren’t so many males – I suppose with being pregnant for so long there isn’t much for them to do!

In the lowlands there is another kind of sloth, the three-toed, but they are not closely related to the two-toed. It’s thought that the two adapted to their life in the trees independently.

By Meri Vasquez and Rowan Eisner

From time to time MLC gets calls from our neighbours letting us know that a wild animal needs rescuing from someone who thought it would make a cute pet.

Back in March we got just such a call from the Inva community next to the CER. There were two female sloths, one of whom was pregnant. They were duly released safely back into their original home in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest.

Also in March these five raccoons finally felt the freedom of the CER after 8 months in rehabilitation at the Assisi rescue center under the care of Dr Jaime de Castillo.

Then a few weeks ago this tiny baby jaguarundi was rescued from a neighbouring village. Poachers would have probably killed the mother to get the baby. It will need to spend several months in rehab at Assisi before it will be ready to be release.

May kicked off with an Ecofest on May Day, organised a member of the community called Fish (aka Orlando Clavo), to commemorate ACM’s landmark 25th year. It was well attended by members of the Monteverde community and people from local organisations. There were stalls illustrating many aspects of sustainability from the embryonic local recycling program, through sustainable food production to powering your home with a bicycle.

ACM presented a children´s play, ‘Red Alert’ about the threats to the animals of the forest. We showed our film ‘Stranded‘ about the importance of connectivity in the landscape to preserve the precious ecosystems of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. There was a children’s program including such activities as drawing and storytelling.

To give you a flavor of the diversity of the event, here are some of the other activities on the day: eco films with live music, the story eco-pioneer Wolf Guindon, on-site recycling, water harvesting, eco retaining wall construction, the farmers’ market, eco coffee growing, peak oil documentary, nature photography and art, home made solar water heating and solar ovens, worm farming, upcycled chair made from garbage, Pura Fruta tree planting on public land, native trees to plant at home, native seed empregnated recycled paper, the biological corridor to the pacific coast, Pronativas native gardens and University of Georgia projects such as turtle monitoring.

The road from San Gerardo to the Caño Negro River

The area known as “Las Chutas” is on a ridge in the CER, northeast of the town of Monteverde, south of Arenal Volcano, west of the Peñas Blancas Valley, and east of San Gerardo biological station.  Forty years ago, the portion of the Caribbean slope of the Tilaran mountain range now part of the CER was largely deforested for pastureland, particularly in the valleys.  The less accessible ridges and hilltops retained more of their tree cover, but clearings speckled the highlands.  Since the CER purchased farms during the past few decades, the forest has regenerated significantly.  Now, to get to a pasture or cleared area from Las Chutas, you have to hike for more than two hours.

Caño Negro River

The camp used during frog monitoring expeditions. It is located 3 hours by foot from the San Gerardo station.

What makes Las Chutas noteworthy, aside from its isolation and dense vegetation, is that it is a site where two species of frog presumed extinct have reappeared.  In the past decades, there has been a worldwide decline in amphibians.  Possible causes include infestations of chytrid fungus, increased UV radiation, and climate change  (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1472-4642.2003.00012.x/full).  During the 1980s, multiple frog populations disappeared from the Monteverde region, including the harlequin frog, green-eyed frog, lichen stream frog, and the famous golden toad.

In 2002, the green-eyed frog (Lithobates vibicarius) reappeared in the CER.  Just this past March, the lichen stream frog (also known as Starrett’s tree frog) was re-discovered in a stream in Las Chutas.

The Green-eyed Frog (Lithobates vibicarius syn. Rana vibicaria) Photo credit: Luis Solano

Two small ponds surrounded by ferns, palms, heliconias, aroids, and moss-covered trees serve as important breeding grounds for the green-eyed frog.  The frogs lay hundreds of eggs in puddles in the forest, and when the tadpoles hatch, they migrate to the ponds.

One of two ponds at Las Chutas, this is an important breeding site for the green-eyed frog.

Eladio Cruz, MCL member, and Luis Solano, head of maintenance, search for frogs along a stream

On a monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) basis, Luis Solano makes the trek to Las Chutas to monitor frog populations.  He conducts five, 50-meter-long transects in which he counts every Green-eyed Frog that he sees.  At night, he searches for all types of frogs, notes their presence by sight or sound, and swabs some of them to test for chytrid fungus growing on their skin.  In addition to frog monitoring, Luis is in charge of maintenance in the CER, spending many hours cleaning trails and boundary lines.

Emerald Glass Frog (Centrolenella prosoblepon)

Lichen Stream Frog (Isthmohyla tica), listed as critically endangered on the IUCN red list

Bare-hearted Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium colymbiphyllum)

Why it's called a glass frog...

Eladio Cruz balances precariously on a log, having collected various species of dragonflies in the middle of the pond. Photo credit: Francis Joyce

Eladio Cruz is another person who has done a lot of fieldwork in the CER.  His most recent project is collecting specimens for an inventory of the dragonflies and damselflies of the Monteverde region.  The Las Chutas ponds proved to be productive places to collect.  When the sun emerged from behind clouds, upwards of six species of dragonflies and damselflies began to whiz above the pond, some mating, some hunting, and some laying eggs in the water.  They flashed metallic blues, greens, and reds from their bodies, tracing ovals and spirals in the air.  To gain a sense of diversity and beauty of these insects, check out this website:Dragonflies and Damselflies of Costa Rica.

One of the many fungus species in the CER, Hygrocybe sp.

Trevoria glumacea, a fragrant, pendant orchid

The Children’s Eternal Rainforest and the Monteverde Conservation League have saved many species from both local extinction and total extinction.  No doubt the green-eyed frog and the lichen stream frog are only a few representative organisms of the biodiversity that the CER has rescued.

A farm bordering the Children's Eternal Rainforest.

A tangle of barbed wire attests to this piece of forest's previous life as pasture.

By guest blogger Richard Joyce.