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1994-03-25
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<text id=89TT0040>
<title>
Jan. 02, 1989: Costa Rica Guards Its Forests
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
Jan. 02, 1989 Planet Of The Year:Endangered Earth
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
PLANET OF THE YEAR, Page 35
The Good News: Costa Rica Guards Its Forests
</hdr><body>
<p> When a fungal disease began ravaging Levy Bryant's
four-hectare cacao farm a decade ago, the landowner could have
done what other besieged farmers have done. He might easily
have picked up an ax and begun cutting down more tropical rain
forest around his land on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. He could
have sold the timber from the tall laurel trees that shade the
cacao bushes, then burned the dense virgin forest on the hill
behind his farm. Then Bryant, like so many financially strapped
small farmers in Latin America, could have sown pasture and sold
the land to a cattle rancher. Within three or four years, one
more small piece of the tropics would have vanished.
</p>
<p> That Bryant did not rush headlong down this slippery
ecological slope is in part testimony to Costa Rica's
commitment to its dwindling natural resources. The country has
more than 20 national parks, wildlife preserves and other
protected areas covering 2,577 sq. mi., or 13% of the land.
Moreover, the nation's stable democracy has attracted hundreds
of scientists and ecologists, making Costa Rica a laboratory for
finding out what is possible in terms of sustainable development
in the tropics.
</p>
<p> One of the major reasons Bryant's plantation is not a
fast-eroding cow pasture is that he got help from an
environmental group called Anai (which means "friend" in the
language of the local Bribri Indians). "We probably wouldn't
still be farming if it wasn't for these guys," admits Bryant.
Anai provided him with new kinds of crops, including vanilla
plants and a different variety of cacao tree, which is less
likely to die from fungus. Over the past five years, Anai has
brought dozens of new varieties of cash crops to more than 20
communities in the Talamanca region, set up plant nurseries
serving 1,500 people, and helped establish a 10,000-hectare
wildlife refuge.
</p>
<p> The encroachment of cow pastures on the cloud forest at
Monteverde spurred another of Costa Rica's efforts to save its
natural heritage. In 1972, 350 hectares of land owned by
American Quakers who had settled the region in the 1950s were
set aside as a private reserve. Over the years that has grown to
10,500 hectares. One key to preserving this huge area was to
allow local people to develop a tourist business. In five years
the annual number of visitors has gone from 6,000 to 15,000,
and could climb to more than 30,000 when a new road up from the
plain is built. That success shows that forests can produce
income without being destroyed.
</p>
</body></article>
</text>