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Jun 2010The water management association of Pueblo Nuevo contributed almost 20 staff hours to help with GPS mapping fieldwork aimed at creating a local-scale map of the extent and type of forest cover in the community’s micro-watershed. Altogether, communities that have received eco-loans from Nectandra Institute have contributed over 400 person-hours during the first six months of 2010 in watershed restoration, monitoring, and awareness-building activities.

Jun 2010Herpetologists Drs. Sean Rovito, Tom Devitt (Museum of Veterbrate Zoology, UC Berkeley) and ecologist Susan Cameron-Devitt (Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University) surveyed the herpetofauna at Nectandra Cloud Forest Garden for ten days. The distribution of Costa Rican amphibians and reptiles is undergoing drastic changes due to climate shifts. Since the extinction of the golden toads (Bufo periglenes) documented at Monteverde in 1997, the population of other studied amphibian species has declined sharply as well. Current information on the herpetofauna of Costa Rica is critically important to the future of these beautiful and elusive animals.

May 2010Residents from the Balsa River watershed community of San Antonio spent several hours on the weekends cleaning up the two kilometer-long San Antonio Creek, which flows into the Espino River, a tributary of the Balsa River. In one 200-meter stretch of the creek, 19 large tires were fished out along with enough trash to fill 6 large sacks. One member of the creek’s clean-up committee is a local dairy farmer that has acknowledged partial responsibility for the contamination flowing into the creek. Besides volunteering for the clean-up initiative without any prompting, he is also in the process of implementing new technologies, such as a bio-digester, in his business that will reduce its impact on the creek. San Antonio is one of five communities that have adopted a local creek or river as participants in Nectandra Institute’s Río Sano, Río Vivo (Healthy River, Live River) competition taking place throughout this year.

Apr 2010Women from five different Balsa River watershed communities, in coordination with Nectandra Institute, obtained and analyzed water samples from 17 points along different nearby creeks and rivers. The women are part of a water-quality monitoring network that began a five-year project in October of last year that will see these same stream locations tested every six months. Data obtained will be publicized with the aim of informing the local land-use planning process.

Apr 2010Nectandra Institute president, Alvaro Ugalde, appeared on the radio show, Nuestra Voz (Our Voice). The daily program is perhaps the most tuned-into morning broadcast in Costa Rica. Alvaro took the opportunity to shine a spotlight on conservation initiatives by local communities, especially those aimed at protecting watersheds and forests for the important role they play in the provision of potable water. For all you Spanish speakers, the following is a link to a podcast of Alvaro’s April 23rd appearance on Nuestra Voz. The host’s interview with Alvaro begins at about the 40 minute mark: http://www.ameliarueda.com/contenido/articles/2187.html.

Mar 2010LightHawk donated two flights to Nectandra Institute. LightHawk’s mission is to champion environmental protection through the unique perspective of flight. Flying aboard a small, single-engine airplane with one of LightHawk’s volunteer pilots at the controls, Nectandra staff took an aerial tour of the eastern sector of the upper Balsa River watershed, which included flyovers of some of the communities we work with and the conservation properties they own. The video and photo documentation obtained will undoubtedly serve as a powerful tool in our effort to promote a “watershed vision” by residents of our partner communities.

Mar 2010Dr. Daniel Norris of the Jepson Herbarium of the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. taught a nine-day course on tropical bryology at the Nectandra Cloud Forest Garden. Students focused on the taxonomy and ecology of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts). Fieldwork included a trip to a 250-acre community-owned restoration site in order to observe and collect specimens. Mosses and other bryophytes play an important role in montane cloud forest hydrology, intercepting rainfall and other precipitation, absorbing and releasing it in a regulated manner, thus helping maintain the flow of streams and rivers.

Feb 2010The Balsa River watershed communities of Angeles Norte and Alto Villegas held their annual joint water management association members’ meeting. Residents attending the meeting were treated to a presentation by Nectandra Institute staff highlighting the importance of watershed protection and reporting on the restoration progress of the communities’ 27-acre property purchased in 2007 with eco-loan financing.

Jan 2010Nectandra Institute’s conservation efforts are carried out with a look towards the future. Similarly, one of our community partners, AFAMAAR, a local watershed conservation organization, has set its sights on the future by forming a support group of young adults to serve alongside its founding Board and help bolster its work. The group visited us at Nectandra Cloud Forest Garden and has enthusiastically embraced its role, revamping AFAMAAR’s website, helping with custodial and restoration activities at AFAMAAR’s 250-acre property purchased last year with eco-loan assistance, and planning several activities to increase awareness for their work in support of watershed restoration and protection of water resources.