Yesterday we were invited to attend the opening of a new cafe in San Luis adjacent to the Community Center. To celebrate the opening of the cafe, everyone was given a free lunch, so perhaps unsurprisingly, the place was packed! For such a relatively small and rural community, I have been really impressed by how many people turn out for community events like these.
After enjoying a tasty lunch, a group well-equipped for hiking began to congregate at the front of the Community Center and we learned that they were going to walk a portion of the Sendero Pacífico. The Sendero Pacífico is a trail that is being developed in the Bellbird Biological Corridor to go all the way from the cloud forest in Monteverde to the mangroves on the coast. I had heard about the Sendero on previous trips, but hadn’t realized that there were large portions under development and some sections already completed. And in hearing about today’s events in Spanish from our neighbor, I somehow missed that we were going to be able to hike some of it after lunch!
We weren’t really prepared for a hike- I had foolishly worn sandals, which aren’t great for hiking on muddy trails and gravel roads. And I had packed all the baby gear into an oversized purse rather than a backpack. But we decided to tag along anyways.
On the way we learned that the trail is being developed to help strengthen both ecological and social connectivity in the corridor. Some communities in the corridor have historically been relatively isolated due to the poor condition of roads. The development of the Sendero has helped these communities connect with other parts of the corridor and collaborate in the development of community-based recreation and tourism opportunities. While the trail will be free for people to hike on, people that live along the trail will be able to sell supplies, guide services and places to camp for hikers.The collaborative nature of this project will help prevent community members from competing against one another, which has been an issue with some of the other rural tourism projects in the area.
Improving ecological connectivity along the trail is also important, as some of the areas that the Sendero will pass through are relatively deforested. The group organizing the development of the Sendero is planning to assist with reforestation along the trail itself by planting windbreaks on either side of the trail. These windbreaks will be designed to both improve the experience for hikers (as it can be VERY windy here!) and to improve connectivity between fragmented forest patches. They are also looking into options for incentivizing conservation and restoration activities on private lands and are even considering developing a land trust for purchasing conservation easements. While my research is focused on assessing the impacts of different approaches to incentivizing these activities, it has thus far focused on Costa Rica’s national Payment for Ecosystem Services program and other more loosely organized reforestation efforts that give trees to farmers. As I hadn’t yet heard anything about the potential to develop a land trust here, it was interesting to consider another potential incentive mechanism.
One of the things I love about engaging with the social sciences is that you never know when you are going to be handed a research opportunity. But this also means that you always have to be ready to say “yes” when these opportunities come your way!
My feet were a bit blistered and muddy at the end of the day, but I have no regrets!