Five years ago a Costa Rican forestry conservation group began to tackle the problem of how to slow deforestation north of the capital city of San Jose. Today, the Foresta Project of the Foundation for the Development of the Central Volcanic Mountain Range (FUNDECOR) has contracts with 90 landowners to sustainably manage more than 30,000 acres (13,000 has.) of forests.
FUNDECOR's engineers draw up management plans for the landowners, marking those trees that will be cut and those conserved. They train local loggers to fell trees in the direction that will cause the least amount of damage to surrounding vegetation. "Just two to five trees per hectare are cut and taken directly to the auction block," explains Victor Montero, a FUNDECOR forester. "This eliminates the customary middlemen who eat up a large portion of the landowners' profits." Forest owners are responsible for paying loggers and truck, tractor or oxen drivers.
In a forest enrolled in the Foresta program, Carlos Lopez of FUNDECOR points to a pile of tree branches and thick, discarded chunks of tree trunks. Ulises Cordero stands nearby, poised with his chainsaw. "Usually after trees are cut, all this remains behind because nobody wants it," Lopez says. "In the Foresta Project, local villagers like Don Ulises buy these scraps, saw them into boards on-site and sell them to furniture makers." Lopez notes Foresta generates jobs for nearby villagers and earnings that total $1.1 million annually. Foresta also established tree nurseries, now managed by local residents, that sell only native species. Farmers plant the seedlings on their worn-out pasture land.
Foresta is principally supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development; FUNDECOR directors declined to reveal the total amount of funding.
The bio-rich central mountain range is home to more than half of the country's wildlife species. The range's watersheds provide half of Costa Rica's drinking water, a paramount reason for FUNDECOR's efforts to keep its steep slopes protected by forest cover.
Contact: FUNDECOR, Apdo. 549-2150, Moravia, Costa Rica; Phone: 506/240- 2624; Fax: 236-8259.