The Green Advantage

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WE’VE MOVED OUT TO THE CAMPO

Fred and Amy Morgan are now living on Finca #2, located in the Guatuso area. Finca Leola has opened an office in the center of Guatuso—there’s no telephone service to the farm, so we have the office in town for the Internet connection. Fred is in the office Monday through Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., so those are the best times to call our toll-free number if you need to reach him.

Fred’s commute by bicycle, rain or shine, is ½ hour going down the mountain from the finca to the office, and 1 hour coming back up. He actually prefers the rainy rides—it’s cooler. And theoretically, he can walk right from our door down to the river in the photo to fish, but so far the relocation has been too hectic for him to do so.

However, it’s great to be right where the action is on the plantation, especially as planting season is underway. We’ve already planted about 8,000 trees on Finca #1, mostly teak. We’re preparing Finca #2 for about 10,000 native trees, to be planted in a couple of weeks.

Also living on Finca #2 is our new caretaker, Nelson. Nelson came highly recommended by the caretaker of Finca #1, Martin, who has done an excellent job over the past year or so. As those of you know who have visited the finca, Martin and his family are really good people, and Nelson and his family are proving to be the same. Living right next door to them, we’re sure we’ll soon become very close friends.

Enjoy Fred's latest Life in the Campo story, Buying Land in Costa Rica.

THINK I'LL CUT DOWN THIS TREE…

If you had a yard full of trees and wanted to give your garden a little more sun, you might decide to cut down one tree. You’d find someone with the proper equipment and know-how and go at it, right? Not in Costa Rica, at least not if you wanted to follow the environmental laws. We knew that Costa Rica has some of the strictest laws of any country for protecting her forests, and we’re finding out what that means to the farm owners.

Plantation trees can be harvested with some simple paperwork, but getting permission to cut even a few low-value trees growing naturally in your own backyard is a multistep process. Depending on which area of jurisdiction you live in, it can be difficult to even get permission. Finca #2 is in a biological corridor and is also in an area where a lot of illegal cutting still goes on, so taking down a tree on this farm is a bit complicated. First, someone has to go in person to an office of the Environment Department 1 ½ hours away and ask for a permit to cut. Then an inspector has to come out and mark the tree(s). After a few days, the office informs us whether or not we can cut the particular tree(s) and issues a permit (or not) that has to be picked up and signed for—another 3-hour round trip. Finally, it has to be properly reported that the tree was cut. Needless to say, the average farmer doesn’t bother with all this each time he needs to fell a single tree. But most avoid cutting near waterways or cutting protected species, as they know they will get in a lot of trouble.

If the wood is to be moved from the property, there is another, similar process to get permission to move it. These types of permits, once received from the Environment Department by the above procedure, have to be submitted to another office 1 ½ hours in another direction, and a specially licensed forester has to be involved in the whole process. The forester has to inspect and certify that the proper trees were cut and the stumps marked. The permission to move the wood must be in the possession of the person who is transporting it. We see piles of confiscated wood by the police station because people tried to move it without these permits, or guides.

We cut some trees from Finca #2 and hauled the wood out with oxen (see photo above), but most of the land we buy for plantations is open pasture, and we leave the existing trees and plant around them, so we don’t normally go through this process. We just have to clear brush and tall grass before planting the trees.