Bill's eye brows went up when he saw the fallen tree.
Bill's eye brows went up when he saw the fallen tree. "My god that thing's big," he said. "That sucker must be worth something."
"We were talking about that the other day," replied naturalist guide Juan Ramón. "I took some rough measurements and figured it all out. If it was all sawed up into lumber there would be about four million colones worth."
"Four million colones? Wow, lets see, that must be more than ten thousand dollars. Are you guys gonna use this wood? It would be easy enough to get it out of here. A D-6 would have no problem coming up this valley. You'd have to chain saw it up into logs and drag them on out, but that's no problem."
Juan Ramón pondered the question thoughtfully, as he studied the weathered face and calloused hands of the man who had asked. Bill and Marjorie had been pleasant to guide and had seemed genuinely interested in the flora and fauna on their rain forest tour. But when the fallen trunk of an enormous iguano tree (Dilodendron costaricense) came into view, thoughts of board feet and dollar signs apparently took possession of the Bill's mind. "Come on over here," Juan said motioning to everyone in the group of five to follow. "Let's see what we can find living on this fallen trunk. It's only been four months since this tree fell, but look what is happening. Lots living things have already started to work on it. Look at this termite trail. See how it winds along the trunk and under the bark. If we follow it up and around into that crotch we'll find their nest."
Sure enough, the rough-surfaced, rounded black nest was nestled into a crotch of the fallen tree, and termite trails resembling sawdust tunnels were leading to it from several directions. Juan Ramón explained how the termites chewed wood fiber and cemented it together with excrement to construct their trails and sturdy homes.
"If you don't get this tree sawed up into logs and get it out of here," observed Bill. "Those damn termites are just gonna eat the whole thing."
Juan Ramón chuckled as he flicked away a few centimeters of the trail with his finger to reveal the tiny termites inside. More of their fellows poured out to help repair the damage. "Do you remember that bird we heard a few minutes ago, the one that went 'yuk, yuk, yuk, wuk?' That was the slaty-tailed trogon. A pair of them always hang around here. They make their nest by burrowing into the bottom of one of these termite colonies. Maybe they'll make their nest here this year, if they don't, some orange-chinned parakeets probably will."
"Hey did you see that?" Exclaimed Marjorie. "That little lizard...where did he go? He just flicked his tongue out and ate one of those termites, but now I can't find him."
"There he is, right there. His camouflage pattern makes him almost invisible. See him." Another visitor named Gordon had spotted the anole lizard.
"I see him," said Jill, Gordon's wife. "There he ate another one. Oh wow! Look what He's doing now. He's got a big red flap under his throat. Why does he do that Juan?"
After flipping out his "red flag" the anole lizard took off running up a branch on the dead tree. A movement up ahead of him caught everyone's attention. It was another anole lizard. Marjorie ventured that it must be a female because she seemed to be playing hard-to-get. She leapt from the high side of the branch to the main trunk at least three meters below. He started to follow, but then, out of nowhere came a winged killer who snatched the male lizard with agile talons, and ascended to perch on an overhanging branch. There the raptor arrogantly dismembered and ate the unfortunate lizard.
"See what's happening here," said Juan Ramón. "The termites break down the wood fiber; the anole lizard eats the termites and the double-toothed kite eats the lizard. Its the start of a food chain, and that's not to mention the birds that nest in the termite ball, nor the anteater that may come and tear it apart and eat more termites, nor the ants that may invade the colony. This fallen tree is important to lots of other creatures, large and small."
Marjorie found some carpenter bees that had carved a nest into the dead wood and laid their eggs there, and a green and black poison dart frog hopped across the trunk. Then Jill and Gordon's son Jerry called out. "Hey, neat! Juan, what's this thing?" Everyone hurried over for a look.
"I think everyone is missing the point here," exclaimed Bill. "It's fine and dandy that all these bugs and lizards get to eat this tree, but what about people. People have to eat too, and they need money to eat. And this here tree is worth lots of money."
Nobody was listening. Everyone had gathered around where Jerry was poking a stick in some rotten wood at the base of the massive fallen trunk. A huge dark brown beetle as big as a chicken egg was clamoring awkwardly over the uneven surface of rotten wood. A curved horn half as long as its body protruded from its nose.
"Oh fantastic, this is a male rhinoceros beetle," said Juan, his whole face alight with excitement. "This insect is a truly endangered species. It has a couple of things against it. First, it needs really big logs, like this one, in order to reproduce. Its life cycle requires three or four years to go from the egg stage through the larval stage and emerge as a mature beetle. During that time it needs rotting wood. Here in the rain forest a smaller log would decompose completely in that time and the larvae would never make it to the adult phase. Old growth forest like this where the big logs are allowed to lay on the ground and rot are its only hope.
The other thing against it is that there is an international market for rare beetles and this one is not only very rare but also very large and unusual.
"No kidding! Say, how much do these bugs sell for on the open market?" asked Bill. Marjorie fixed her husband with a steely-eyed glare.
Juan Ramón, put his foot on a fungi encrusted piece of broken branch about half the size of Jerry. "Now everybody watch carefully, and keep in mind that four months ago this chunk of wood wasn't here."
With his foot Juan Ramón rolled the small log over. Several small invertebrates scurried away, others including several spiders, two millipedes, numerous small beetles, a couple of large grubs and untold quantities of ants with their brood remained visible in the newly uncovered world. Broken ends of a network of thin tan-colored roots protruded from both the trunk and the earth as did small, white strands of fungus. Raking through the aftermath produced a multitude of smaller black beetles, earthworms, and tiny unidentifiable life forms.
"Do you see what I'm getting at," explained the guide. "All these living things depend on the rotting material from this tree. They eat the wood, break it down into the basic building blocks of life and it becomes incorporated back into the earth in their feces and dead bodies. Nothing is lost. It all gets recycled. When this tree fell, it opened a clearing. With the sunlight that now pours in here, all these young trees you see can grow tall and replace this fallen giant.
Look over there, at that young iguano seedling. It's no taller than Gordon, but it will grow quickly with all this good fertilizer and sunlight."
"Okay, so this is just hunky dory for all you tree huggers," started Bill determinedly, "but the facts remain that we have to make money to live and the world needs wood. Surely you eco-warriors think it is better to sell this fallen tree than to cut another one down somewhere else."
"Okay Bill, that's a fair point, but why did you come to Hacienda Barú National Wildlife Refuge for a tour?"
Marjorie answered. "We met some people in Quepos that told us we should come here, and then we saw your ad in Quepolandia."
Juan Ramón continued, "Okay, let's imagine that when this tree fell, we had come in here right away with a bulldozer and dragged the fallen trunk out of this primary forest. In addition to the thousands of species and millions of individual life forms that would have perished, and the healthy trees that would have been knocked over by the bulldozer, and the erosion problems that would have resulted from the invasion of this virgin soil with machinery, just think about how different your experience would have been on this tour today. Would it have been the same?"
"No, but four million colones is ten thousand dollars, you could use a bit of that to plant a couple more trees here," grumbled Bill.
"Maybe you should look at it a different way Bill," Juan said patiently. "Indirectly we are making money from this tree, by leaving it here and teaching guests like yourself about forest ecology.
Try to imagine what this forest would look like now without the tree, and ask yourself if the people who told you to come here would have recommended Hacienda Barú had they done their tour under those circumstances. "
"Okay, but you still haven't said anything to convince me that it is better to leave this fallen tree here and cut down another tree somewhere else," insisted Bill.
"I'm glad you brought that up again.
Right here we are in virgin forest. Now, for an ecosystem like this to support a maximum diversity of life, you can't take any part of it out. Especially not at the bottom of the food chain, which is where this dead Iguano tree is. In my opinion it is better to grow wood in plantations and leave pristine habitats like this one to the wildlife. What is important is that habitats like this one have forest corridors between them, so that wildlife can move around."
"That's all very well," interjected Bill "but not everyone can afford the luxury leaving land to wildlife. Some people have to make a living, and not everyone can do what you guys do."
"That's true," agreed Juan Ramón, "and we are fortunate here at Hacienda Barú that we can make our living showing people a good time while teaching them about the rain forest. But there are other ways, and people with a little ingenuity are finding them.
Some women at the village of Tres Piedras are making a living by crafting and selling jewelry and adornments made from rain forest seeds and other renewable forest products. Some friends up in Dos Bocas have quit hunting pacas (fruit and seed eating Pekinese-sized rodents) and are raising them in captivity and selling the meat. We must look for new and different ways to make a living from the rain forest without destroying or damaging it."
"I don't know," said Bill. "Most of these new ideas never work out. Its better to stick with what's been tried and proven."
"What is tried and proven has brought us global warming and climate change and many other problems. Tried and proven can also mean obsolete. Let me illustrate what I mean with a story," replied Juan Ramon. "A group of scientists put five monkeys in a cage. In the center of the cage was a step ladder with a bunch of bananas hanging over it. Each time a monkey climbed the ladder to grab a banana the scientists showered the other monkeys with a torrent of cold water. After a time, whenever a monkey started to climb the ladder the others promptly dragged him down and beat the daylights out of him.
After a while, not a monkey in the cage would attempt to climb the ladder, no matter how tempting the bananas. Then the scientists removed one of the monkeys and introduced a new one. The new monkey immediately tried to climb the ladder and was promptly dragged down and beaten by the other monkeys. After several beatings the new arrival desisted from trying to climb the ladder. A second monkey was substituted and the same thing occurred. The first new monkey participated with enthusiasm in beating the novice. A third monkey was substituted and the same thing happened. A fourth and finally the last of the veterans was substituted with the same results.
What remained were a group of five monkeys which, even though none had ever received a cold water bath, continued to clobber any monkey that attempted to get a banana.
If it were possible to ask these monkeys why they always punished their companions for trying to climb the ladder, it is almost certain that they would answer:
"This is the way we have always done things."
Everyone except Bill smiled. But the point was clear. We can't continue to do things like we always have. We can't continue to deplete our resources and eliminate all the other life forms that share our environment. We need to look for new ways to make a living without damaging or destroying our planet.
Recommend reading: The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson.
|
