Excerpted from DEFORESTING TO REFORESTING: A MODEL IN COSTA RICA FOR PROFITABLE REFORESTATION*

By the Finca Leola staff

It doesn't take very long to cut down a tree, but it takes decades to replace it. Reforestation is not happening fast enough. And other than in national parks and forest preserves, it is not normally a long-term proposition. The reason is that, eventually, the owner of reforested land will have to sell it or pass it on, and it may go to someone who doesn't feel that conservation and reforestation are all that important. Trees often outlive people, and someone may eventually yield to the temptation to harvest them unless they are protected somehow.

In Costa Rica, until only about 15 years ago, you could secure free land by improving it. The easiest way to improve the land was to chop down the forest. The forest was considered wasted or unused land. In fact, Costa Rica had to pass laws to prevent squatters from having the right to take over land that was being allocated for reforestation, because it seemed to them to be neglected.

Our goal on the Finca Leola S.A. tree plantation is to move back in the other direction: to go from pasture to perpetual forest, with a plantation as the first cycle, or interim step. Returning farmland to forest takes creative thinking for those of us with limited resources. We have a two-phase plan: taking pasture to plantation, then plantation to perpetual forest. The first phase will pay for the second, and the second phase will pay to maintain itself.

In the plantation phase, we grow trees for ourselves and others as an investment. You can find out on our website how to have us raise tropical hardwoods for you and help you sell the wood. We are taking this approach because in this way we can afford to secure more farms around us for reforestation. After the plantation trees are harvested, the land will revert to forest. It's as if the trees themselves are working to bring back their habitat.

Already, because of owning land for our current plantation, we are expanding the natural forest around the rivers, streams, and swamps. Also, we have done a very unusual thing: All of the big, lone trees in the middle of the pastures, ojoche, laurel, corteza, and other rare species, have been left standing and the plantation trees planted around them. This means that we are preserving the seed stock, or mother trees. There are about 200 mature trees in the areas that we are planting. Some will need to be harvested over the years due to their age, but most will still be there in 25 years, bigger than ever.

Illustration: The steps to a perpetual forest

Pastureland

Fields are filled in with rows of plantation trees; space has been left around mother trees and existing forest.

Half the plantation trees harvested; native trees replace plantation trees; mother trees bigger; forest has spread.

Plantation trees 100% harvested; mother tree seedlings transplanted to open space; forest spreads. This is the start of a new forest.

So, when you purchase trees with us, you are doing more than just providing some reforestation now; you are permanently preserving 350 square meters of land for every block of 100 trees. You are helping us create a perpetual forest. Perpetual means that, unlike most forests, this one will have people who will always protect it and care for it. It will be maintained for wildlife and for the environment, with trees only being removed as needed to improve the health of the forest. The wood from these trees will be sold to provide a living for those who work taking care of the forest.

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The owners of Finca Leola S.A. are currently working on placing all of the land that we have purchased in a land trust, where the use of the land will be forever defined by a conservation easement. We will no longer own the land ourselves, but like everyone who owns trees that we are taking care of, we will own only the trees that were planted as an investment.

. . .

As for us, when we became concerned about deforestation, we were still the same people with the same needs as before. We need to provide for our retirement, so we have to invest wisely. We decided to do it at the same time as investing in something that would make a difference. In addition to securing our retirement, by turning all of the land we own into a perpetual forest, we will secure it from ever again being used for anything besides sustainable forest. Because this reforestation land will be set aside in trust for the future, when people invest with us, they will know that they are doing something not just short-term, but they are making a permanent change to the amount of rainforest in the world.

*Click to read full text of article

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