Trading rainforest for palm oil. Is it worth it?
Here's an essay from one of our students after spending some time in Sierpe. It is very encouraging to see this type of follow up. Imagine if every gringo student that came to Costa Rica followed up like this. Jesse by the way is an undergraduate student maybe this is why he's able to see past academia and think about the big picture.
Enjoy.
ECOTICOS
James M. Jeffords Center 2009-2010 Undergraduate Scholar Application
Environmental Education Without Borders
I left for Costa Rica in January 2009 to work in a little town called Sierpe, located on the mangrove ecosystem of the Osa peninsula, helping out with some community relations aspects of an environmental project of UVM’s Community Development and Applied Economics Department and the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. During my time there Azur Moulaert (CDAE faculty and fellow at the Gund Institute) arrived for a few days with a volunteer retired pilot and two scholars from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, to do a flyover of the surrounding area, surveying the landscape, the damage that was done, and the threats that are posed. I was able to squeeze into the fifth and final seat on the tiny airplane, and the evidence I looked down upon from my birds eye view was shocking. There seemed to be a small line of trees left next to the locations in view of many people, such as surrounding towns or lining the rivers. Yet behind this thin band of trees would be a leveled landscape cleared for grazing, or miles and miles of monocropped palms. The damage that the landscape was suffering, as well as the vast amounts of biodiversity it was losing, was so apparent from overhead, yet so much harder to see from the ground. This explained why when I interviewed residents about a possible new airport in the region, they were all for it and the economic benefits more tourists would bring. It seemed that not a thought of the environmental destruction the government and developers’ airport would bring crossed their minds, and who could blame them?
There is another side to this coin, as several residents of Sierpe expressed a strong sense of pride in the natural landscape that surrounds them. The protected area of Sierpe still boasts over 50,000 acres of pristine landscape, much of the coastline remains intact, and there is still a spectacular array of beautiful wildlife. These features are the capital that the residents of Sierpe have to conserve and utilize to make their money through the attraction of ecotourism. It is understood that if these natural features of the landscape are depleted, so will the potential for generating capital in towns like Sierpe. What is not understood is just how perilous of a state this natural environment is in, and how if action is not taken now, it will soon be too late. All people – not just the locals but also the people residing in the Central Valley, the tourists visiting from abroad and the agencies that fund blanket development strategies for regional growth, environmental and social concerns notwithstanding, desperately need an environmental education/consciousness. Through my studies in Political Science, I have learned that if effective governance is ever attainable, it must be through higher levels of citizen participation, though an issue must first be understood before it is fought for.
Fortunately, we have much of the organization in place to begin carrying out an education as important as the one that is needed in Sierpe. With the help of our friends at http://www.lighthawk.org/ we took over four thousand bird’s eye photos showcasing the good, the bad, and the simply ugly affects of development on and around the Sierpe mangroves. For proof of the value of large-scale photography, look no further than Ansel Adams, who utilized the educating power of a photo to achieve environmental conservation and appreciation. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then surely the environmental awareness that our pictures can foster could be worth 50,000 acres of protected mangroves.
I propose putting these pictures and relationships to their full use by creating a bilingual exhibit to bring to the towns of Sierpe, Costa Rica, where the National Theatre of Costa Rica and the local schools of Sierpe could host, and Burlington, Vermont, where the Fire House Gallery and the Davis Center would be used. With photos blown up to 5ft by 5ft, both Vermonters and Ticos could experience the bird’s eye view while reading a story that would accompany each photo, explaining its significance, as well as the causes and consequences of the environmental degradation or threat it displays. With this kind of outreach and education, we could greatly strengthen the power and voice of this incredibly important environmental movement, integrating the passions and perspectives of both Vermonters and Ticos, a partnership that would transcend national boundaries and lend itself to a powerful education for citizens on both ends, as well as an increased influence of Ticos on the public policy that so affects them. This community exchange will be full when groups from each community visit the other’s exhibit, linking the two communities in a mutually beneficial spirit of collaboration.
By: Jesse Simmons
299 Colchester Ave Burlington, VT 05405
(617) 820 6900
UVM Majors: Ecological Economics and Political Science (Honors Program)
GPA: 3.57 (cumulative), 3.93 (most recent semester)
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