It is certainly no secret that Monteverde's climate, altitude, and unique positioning on the Continental Divide have fostered the evolution of some very special plants and animals. Over the years, through individual and organizational efforts, much of the zone's higher elevations have been fastidiously preserved. In total to date, approximately 46,000 hectares (or 101,200 acres) are protected formally under various forms of private parks and reserves. It would seem that all is well, and that hectare upon hectare of cloudforest and rainforest reserves translate directly into a sustainable natural community. This is not necessarily so.
The problem, simply put, is two-fold. First, since plants (and their fruits) are immobile, forest animals must go to where their food is. For example, all the food needed by birds and arboreal mammals is not necessarily found, year-round, in Monteverde's cloudforests. Because of this, many animals travel up and down the hills and valleys in search of a meal. Second, forest fragmentation, or the breaking-up of forested lands into smaller and smaller disconnected pieces, can effectively stop foraging animals "dead" in their tracks. Did you know that the Black Guan will not fly across an open space of as little as one hundred fifty meters? Or that the famous Resplendent Quetzal is in fact a migratory bird that breeds in the cloudforest, but after breeding will migrate up to thirty kilometers to new feeding grounds prior to returning to their cloudforest nesting sites? The threatened Tapir, a large forest dwelling mammal, requires a large contiguous forest including high and low elevations to survive, and will not migrate through open spaces. As forest "islands" are created and habitats decline, so do the Tapir, the Guan, and the Quetzal.
Many residents of the Monteverde community are rising to the occasion with an initiative designed to provide corridors, or "stepping stones" of natural habitats between the larger protected areas. This initiative, named Enlace Verde or "Green Link," was initiated in 1994 during a Monteverde Town Meeting. Initially, the idea of easements arose as an option that would allow private landowners to effectively determine the zoning of the community neighborhoods and common areas. A volunteer commission was established, and it was there that the idea of linking reserves was incorporated into the plan. It has evolved into an MVI supported initiative through which local landowners may dedicate all or discrete parts of their properties to what are called "conservation easements." At this point, the biological corridor has become a central focus of many landowners, and is one point that everyone has agreed they would like to incorporate into their easements. During a July 1997 meeting of property owners, it was unanimously agreed that by establishing conservation easements to protect the forest corridor on some ten contiguous properties bordering or near to the Guacimal and Maquina Rivers, the community could make a strong and lasting outward demonstration of inner beliefs about the importance of conserving certain critical areas of forest for current and future generations.
A conservation easement is a relatively simple and very flexible legal mechanism by which property owners voluntarily, and in writing, agree to certain use restrictions on their properties. These agreements may be between two or more individuals or organizations and may relate to several properties simultaneously. No zoning ordinances are required and no governmental intervention is necessary, other than the filing of a simple legal document with the Civil Registry. These voluntary use restrictions "run with the land" until such time as all property owners involved in the easement mutually agree to a different arrangement. No modification or revocation of the agreement can be binding unless the parties subsequently file another written document memorializing the agreed upon change(s) or nullifying the easement in its entirety. In the event of sale and/ or subdivision of a property, the easement is not affected.
The Institute, the Enlace Verde Commission, and CEDARENA, the Costa Rican based Natural Resources and Environmental Law Center, all embrace the opportunity to be leaders in demonstrating thoughtful land use planning and conservation of critical habitats through the use of easements, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate through example the inclusion of creative and positive-focused provisions for monitoring and dispute resolution. For example, monitoring provisions for some properties will include students from the local high schools' science programs, and dispute resolution clauses include mediation and arbitration channels involving community members and NGOs rather than the traditional judicial processes which can be expensive and drag out for years without resolution.
In late 1996, CEDARENA received a one-year grant to work on conservation easements in Costa Rica and Central America, and Monteverde has been selected as one of three focal communities for the country. MVI and the Enlace Verde Commission, represented by Carlos Guindon, Katy Van Dussen, and Quint Newcomer, have been working closely with CEDARENA to continue the Enlace Verde project into fruition. Beginning in 1995, an Institute-hosted program, Sustainable Futures, has worked on the planning and information gathering stages of the project. Students and professors from the University of Maryland and the State University of New York - Buffalo attend a summer (June - August) program in which they have produced land use maps for local property owners, general maps of the critical areas between reserves, conducted individual and group interviews with local land owners to review land uses and potential use restrictions, and have assisted lawyers in drawing up sample easement documents. The project has progressed to the point of implementation, and CEDARENA is now drafting easements for a number of residents and for the Institute properties.
The next stages of the Enlace Verde project for Monteverde include continued planning with property owners along the Maquina and Guacimal Rivers that flow between the Monteverde Cloudforest Reserve and the Children's Eternal Rainforest (Bosque Eterno de los Niños), developing a strategic plan for the next five years of the project in the greater Monteverde Zone, and securing funding for this period of planning and implementation.
Borrowing David Brower's idea of CPR for the Earth (Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration), the Enlace Verde project for the Monteverde Zone aims to conserve through the establishment of sustainable long-term land use provisions, to preserve through the voluntary delegation of specific critical corridors as protected areas, and to restore threatened and declining habitats by encouraging the planting of native species in those areas in which the corridors have thinned significantly and by restricting resource extraction in these areas.
In December of 1997, the author together with the President of the Monteverde Friends Association, signed the first reciprocal conservation easement document in the history of the country, an important precedent for the future application of easements as community-based planning tools for land management.
For more information about conservation easements in Costa Rica and Central America, contact Carlos Chacon, M.Sc.; Email: cedarena@sol.racsa.co.cr; tel:(506) 224-14-26
This article was originally written for the Instituto Monteverde 1997 Annual Report by Quint Newcomer, Executive Director of Instituto Monteverde and one of three active members of the Enlace Verde Commission since 1995. Email: quintimv@sol.racsa.co.cr
Eco Travels in Costa Rica
Home |
About |
Advertise! |
Books |
Central America |
Ecotourism |
Headlines
Learn Spanish |
Mexico |
Media |
Site Map |
South America |
World Travel |
Updates