Adventures at Giovani's

The time we spent at Giovani’s was arguably the best part of the second field trip.  On Friday morning after breakfast we toured a nearby organic pineapple plantation and learned about the social, environmental, and economic aspects of organic pineapple production. After viewing the fields and the packaging plant, we ended the tour with piña coladas and a variety of pineapple treats.

When we got back to Giovani’s we hiked down to the river for a swim. It was raining, but we swam anyway, being sure to watch for signs of flash floods. Luckily we didn’t encounter any flash floods, but the current was quite strong. We swam upriver and then let ourselves float down in the current over and over just for the fun of it! It was super entertaining. There was also a rope swing that we kept grabbing onto and trying to climb, but it was nearly impossible to get it to the side of the river because the current was too strong. I was able to climb part way up the rope and hang there for a while before letting myself fall back into the water.

Giovani's Cabin

On the way back from the river, John and I were gathering large leaves to make his Halloween costume (he wanted to be some sort of jungle man). UNFORTUNATELY we didn’t realize that the leaves had some built in defenses, and our hands started to sting. By the time we got back to the cabin we had discarded our leaves and were running to find Karen to ask her what was happening to our hands! Apparently the stems of the leaves we were picking had nettles that had irritated our skin. So THAT was an adventure!

We washed up, hung out for a bit, and got ready for dinner. After dinner we had a lecture from Matt and Natti about reduced impact logging (RIL) and forest certification. Our hands stopped stinging by the end of the night. The next day, Saturday, we went to talk to the owner of a farm who is involved in both an Environmental Service Payment (ESP) program and a Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) program in Costa Rica.

How is this possible, you ask? Well, what happens is that for the RIL program a 15-year fallow period is required between logging periods during which logging is prohibited. During this time, many farmers receive environmental service payments for not disturbing the forest. The contracts for these programs are renewed every 5 years. Thus, landowners collect money from these payments while they are waiting the 15 years until they are allowed to log again. This isn’t quite sustainable for a variety of reasons. First, the 15-year period between logging events is not enough time for the forest to regenerate, thus leading to the gradual decline of the forest. In addition, because these “protected” forests are owned by farmers, the forests are surrounded on nearly all sides by agriculture without sufficient buffer zones, which intensifies the impacts of edge effects and problems associated with agriculture (e.g. runoff, decreased biodiversity due to monoculture, effects of cattle, etc.)

"Nine companions" watching Lord of the Rings

After our visit we returned to Giovani’s and had a discussion about all of the different protected property, ESP and RIL programs that we had learned about. After the discussion we had dinner and then had a lecture about fungus. That night we all hung out and watched Lord of the Rings on the projection screen. It was super fun having a family movie night with everyone!