Creating 'escape routes' for
wildlife
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff |
Contributor to The Christian
Science Monitor
Biolley District, Costa Rica -
Slightly smaller than West
Virginia, Costa Rica is a
relatively little country. At
its narrowest, it's a mere 74
miles wide. And yet, like much
of Central America, it contains
an extraordinary diversity of
wildlife. The country
encompasses mangrove swamp on
the coasts, lowland rain forest
on the Caribbean coastal plain,
drier forest in the foothills of
the Pacific slopes, and
high-elevation cloud forests on
its mountains. Covering only
1/10000th of the world's
surface, Costa Rica hosts 1 out
of every 20 species on the
planet. All of Central America
hosts roughly 1 out of every 8
species.
As the globe warms, scientists
generally expect ecozones –
those habitats defined by a
specific temperature and
rainfall – to move away from the
equator and, in mountainous
regions, to move uphill.
In theory, the wildlife
accustomed to these habitats
would move, too. But in
human-dominated and fragmented
landscape – and given the speed
of predicted climate change –
scientists worry that wildlife
won't be able to adjust in time.
Trapped behind agricultural
fields, cities, and highways,
many species will simply
disappear as the climate warms,
they say. One-quarter of Earth's
species – plant and animal –
could disappear by century's
end, according to the latest
report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change.
To improve the situation,
scientists propose creating
"biological corridors" between
wilderness areas – natural
spaces that allow wildlife to
shift uphill or across latitudes
in response to changing climate.
In Central America,
conservationists dream of a
paseo pantera – a panther's path
– running from Panama north to
Mexico. They call it the Meso-American
Biological Corridor.
Facilitating the movement of
wildlife isn't a new idea.
Scientists have long argued that
"corridors" would allow animals
like the jaguar, which needs
about 15 square miles of
territory per individual, space
to roam, hunt, and breed.
Corridors also prompt the
exchange of genes between
isolated populations, promoting
genetic diversity and avoiding
inbreeding. (Unfortunately, they
provide little help to animals
on top of tropical mountains,
which have nowhere to go.)
But people often live where
conservationists would like to
put corridors, leaving two
options: Remove the people and
return the land to nature; or
leave the people and work with
them to make the land able to
serve as a corridor.
Governments and conservation
organizations usually don't have
the money to buy land outright.
And many think that removing
people from the land creates a
new set of problems. Landless
people who are poor and
desperate are much more likely
to hunt and harvest in a
destructive way, leading to more
environmental degradation.
"Conservation is not only a
technical or political process,"
says Bernal Herrera, science
director of The Nature
Conservancy's Costa Rica
program, "but also a social
process. You have to provide an
alternative."
Conservationists working in
southwestern Costa Rica hope to
connect the country's largest
national park, La Amistad, which
sits on the central mountain
chain and extends into
neighboring Panama, with a
lowland jungle on the Pacific
coast called Osa. If the areas
are connected, it would
represent a significant link in
the greater Meso-American
Biological Corridor.
Rather than buying land and
removing people, they've opted
to promote organic
coffee-growing methods along La
Amistad's western flank. Coffee
plants need shade, which means
keeping trees – and wildlife
habitat – throughout the
plantation. And if the coffee is
grown without pesticides, the
plantations will also host many
other plants, which in turn
support a whole range of
species. Many animals needing to
shift their range in response to
a changing climate could move
through the area.
José Antonio Vargas Monge,
president of ASOPROLA, an
association of organic coffee
growers in the area, has a lot
to say about the joys and
difficulties of his work. As he
talks, his calloused hands move
quickly over the coffee bushes,
pruning green waxy leaves he
calls hojas falsas – "false
leaves."
Coffee plantations that switch
to organic methods take three
years to adjust, he says.
Accustomed to direct application
of fertilizer, the plants' root
systems are not as extensive as
they should be and must expand.
The harvest inevitably declines.
Unable to make the transition,
some plants die. Many farmers
despair and return to their old
methods, which involve
herbicides and pesticides.
But if the farmer can persevere
through those initial years, the
benefits are manifold, says Don
Antonio, as his colleagues call
him. The farmers and their
families no longer expose
themselves to pesticides. And
although the organic plants
produce fewer beans, they fetch
more on the market. He pulls
back the black, rotting leaf
litter beneath a guava tree
exposing coffee bush roots just
beneath the surface. "It turns
into something beautiful," he
says.
ASOPROLA has bigger plans than
just roasting and selling
organic coffee. Farming
organically and sustainably has
made the district into a tourist
destination as well. Tourist
dollars further diversify the
incomes of farmers, making them
less beholden to fluctuations in
the coffee market.
Together, organic farming, La
Amistad park, and tourism have
another beneficial side effect,
explains Yendry Suárez, vice
president of ASPROLA. "Before,
the young people migrated to the
city to study, to work. Now,
many of us young people have the
opportunity of not leaving, of
finding an income source
locally," she says. "Here where
we grew up – right here we're
going to develop as people."
By involving communities that
border La Amistad, park rangers
increase the number of eyes and
ears guarding it, says Gravin
Villega Rodríguez, a ranger at
La Amistad. Before, rangers
would drive many hours in
response to fire calls only to
discover that a wily poacher had
cried "fire" as a decoy. Now,
with communities involved, when
a ranger gets a fire call, "we
can trust it," Mr. Villega says.
More often than not, members of
the community "put it out
themselves," he says.
Many conservationists hail
organizations such as ASOPROLA
as a key to both creating
wilderness corridors and
preserving existing parks. But
some doubt the long-term
effectiveness of this type of
conservation. A farmer may agree
to reforest his land or adopt
sustainable land-use practices
today, says Daniel Janzen, a
technical adviser to Área de
Conservación Guanacaste, a park
in Costa Rica's northwest. But
what happens if tomorrow his
daughter gets married and needs
a house, or the next generation
takes the land over and doesn't
feel the same way?
"Bye-bye forest," suggests Dr.
Janzen in a phone conversation.
The best way to preserve
biodiversity – and bolster many
species' chances of surviving in
a warmer world – is to
consolidate and expand existing
parks, and endow them to exist
for the foreseeable future, he
says. "All the private efforts
we do are tempo
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Biological corridors, such as one planned from Panama to
Mexico, would let species migrate to safer climates as
global warming heats up their old habitats. |
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