Rio Sol Bio Corridor, Maleku Reserve, Costa Rica

November 17 and 18 Jimmy Acosta, Bienvenido Cruz and myself did the tree inventory of the nurseries growing trees for the second phase planting of the Rio Sol Biological Corridor project. The final count was 20,250 and over 95 species.

I felt very fortunate to write all of the checks to the 18+ nursery owners on my birthday, what an amazing gift. Daniel, Jimmy and our friend Brian Bubb delivered them the following day, Friday, November 25^th. Everyone in Tonjibe knew they were coming but I wasn’t able to tell them what time exactly. Dan, Jimmy and Brian had to go first to Katira and Guatuso to deliver checks. When they arrived at Palenque Tonjibe the bus was parked waiting, all of the nursery participants were waiting to receive their checks and board the bus for Guatuso where they would cash them. Only problem was each person had to also sign a receipt and by the time everyone signed the bus had left, leaving quite a large crowd of women and children behind. Daniel had to go up into the housing area to pay a couple of people who weren’t out in the street. When he came back to the car he said he’d never seen so many taxis coming in and leaving with so many people. Everyone doubled up and rented taxis because they’d missed the bus. 

This past Monday, the 28^th, work began planting the second stage of the Rio Sol project. The preliminary crew hauled the trees from Felipa Alvarez’s nursery (500 meters into the forest without a road) out to the main road using a team of oxen and a small cart.

On Tuesday the full ten man team hauled all of the trees from the nurseries in Palenque Tonjibe out to the main road using plastic boxes and wheelbarrows. They also brought the 1000 cacao trees from Deiby’s nursery in Katira that took two trips with a cargo taxi. A truckload was also taken from the La Reserva nursery, approximately 800 trees of 15+ species, and delivered to the church in Tonjibe. That makes a total of over 21,000 trees and 110 native species. By the end of the day all of the trees except a small amount on the road into Tonjibe were sitting next to the bright green church ready for pick up by the tractor and huge trailer on Wednesday morning.

This morning, Wednesday, with everyone ready to haul the trees up to Marvin Castro’s farm in Viento Fresco, the tractor driver called to say he wouldn’t be able to make it. The team worked the rest of the morning hauling out the other small amount of trees at Palenque Margarita and then were done for the day. Mañana says the tractor driver. Hmmmm.

Waiting to ………………..GET PLANTING

Links:

• Restoring Maleku Ancestral Lands