The Green Advantage

Invest in your future, then invest in your world.^TM

Teak Over Our Heads in 4 Months

The fastest-growing variety of trees on our plantation is the teak. Many of them are taller than Fred now, and a small child can hide behind a single teak leaf. The teak fields are beautiful. In the photos, you see tiquizque growing in between the trees. The agroforestry practice of growing a cash crop between the trees for the first few years keeps the weeds down. The leaves of the two plants are similar in size and shape, but the ones with reddish leaves on them are teak. The mahogany (caoba) and Spanish cedar come next in size, with surá  a slower-growing species. All of the trees are very healthy, and the forestry engineer is pleased with their growth rates.

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LOCAL FARMERS WANT TO SELL

Each time we have been in Costa Rica with Hector, we have been approached by several nearby landowners interested in selling. This is why we decided to grow trees for other people and help anyone who wants to get started doing reforestation. We knew that there would always be plenty of good land to plant on, and it seemed good to help as many people as possible who want to do something socially responsible with the money they have to invest.

Encouraged by seeing our responsible land use, more farmers than ever came to us during our October 2003 trip. If you are interested in seeing what these available properties are like, they will be shown in the photo gallery soon to be added to the site.

The purpose of our October 2003 trip was to show properties to someone who is starting a tropical tree plantation near Finca Leola. This marks the start of a plantation owners’ association in the area, wherein we will share resources between the two plantations. We are obviously very excited about this, because with additional plantations in the area, it means that we can share resources and trained labor. It also allows us to consider doing things that were slightly out of our reach before, like starting our own nursery for the tree seedlings. This last year, everything went very well except getting tree seedlings. The expense was fine, but getting the seedlings from the nursery to the plantation was difficult at times, and we had to wait for the pilón because of a problem at the nursery.Another major advantage is the knowledge of the new plantation owner. He has been researching tree plantations for several years, and we have had a very interesting dialogue going over the last few months about reforestation. I really appreciate another person who is as avid a reforester as we are who is willing to share ideas and work together in this part of Costa Rica.

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FINCA LEOLA ON THE WEB

In the first month of its existence, www.fincaleola.com received nearly 11,000 hits. It is also very high in the major search engines for "Costa Rica reforestation." As gratifying as this is, the feedback from all of you means even more to us.

If you are a tree owner and would like a free e-mail account with us under the domain of fincaleola.com, please let us know. It is limited to the first 900.