Hello all. I thought I'd share my experiences of a recent trip to the tropics. I hope it is of interest.
It has been a 'dream' of mine for a while to use my arb skills to assist in biological research or conservation in one way or another, particularly in the tropics and last year I basically found myself between jobs and with few personal commitments so I decided to save up a couple of grand and fly out to Costa Rica with my climbing gear and a small list of contacts. I ended up spending three months in the country and worked for two different organisations whilst there.
The first two months of the trip were spent with the Macaw Recovery Network, a conservation organisation that aims to study and conserve the endangered Great Green Macaw. I was primarily hired as a 'canopy access technician' but also spent a lot of time as a research assistant. This is the first season of field research carried out by the MRN and has relied a lot on data collected by other Costa Rican conservationist organisations, particularly for nest locations. This early stage is essentially a natural history study of this largely understudied species to try to further understand the causes of decline and inform conservation approaches. The presence of the organisation also serves as a deterrent against poaching and predation.
The field station was located in the heart of the Green Great Macaw breeding range in northern Costa Rica, on the Carribean slope of the central divide, a mountain range that runs the length of the country. Until 40 years ago the area was almost entirely forested until clearance for cattle ranching and crops resulted in massive fragmentation.
The Great Green nests almost exclusively in cavities in the mountain almond tree (Dipteryx panamemsis). The timber of the tree is so dense and difficult to process that during the clearance of the 80s, many of them were left standing. It has since become illegal to fell these trees due to their association with the bird and so many relic mountain almonds are found amongst the pasture and plantations.
I suppose one of my contributions as an arborist was to point out that cavity formation on the trees was accelerated by the stress that they were put under due to surrounding land use changes, root ploughing etc. Many of the trees were retrenching in much the same way that a farmland oak would, growing a dense lower canopy and dying back considerably in the upper canopy, opening the door for termites and fungi to hollow out sometimes the entire tree. There was a big contrast between the amount of cavities seen on the forest trees compared to the ones remaining in the pastures. It seems quite obvious but something that hadn't been considered was that it was ranching that had essentially created an almost artificial breeding ground for the species.
My primary role was to access the cavities and collect data such as dimensions, depth, temperature, orientation, pests and predator presence with a view to better understanding their nesting preferences and quality. Climbing these trees was pretty intense but incredible. Firstly they are massive (sometimes 60m +). I have never worked in Australia, the US or Canada so these were by far the biggest trees I've ever climbed. My VT and wrench worked fine but getting lines in them was the tough bit. It was what might be up there that was most worrying, although this bothered me less the more I climbed. They are also home to an array of pit vipers and killer bees so fully scoping the tree out with binoculars before going up was important. Add the intense heat and humidity and you've got a quite exciting but exhausting experience. The views and the novelty of being up an emergent tropical rain forest tree was well worth it, like entering another world. Huge amounts of the vegetation I found in their canopies didn't belong to the tree but was epiphytic and the phenomenal diversity of birds and mammals that was often baffled and confused at the sight of this hideous, clumsy creature that's just showed up.
It was a pleasure to be involved with the MRN. They're an incredibly dedicated and passionate group of people living very basic and unluxurious lives for a cause they fully believe in. They could probably do with another climber since I've left if anyone's keen.
I'm tired now but I'll continue shortly with an account of the second project I took part in on the Osa Peninsula.