La Reserva Forest Foundation

The Seedling Collectors

                                                                  

From left to right, Tim Johnson, Phil Baker, Michele Glenn, Sharon Baker, Omar Munoz Arguero, Sands and Karen Spencer and Koki (Sandra Shaw and Roger Eichholz's worker after a productive day of collecting. Thank you!!
 

On June 13, 2007, an enthusiastic group of volunteers left from La Reserva at 7 am on a seedling collection foray to the other side of the lake. Two of the volunteers were Karen and Sands Spencer, owners of the property where we would all hunt the baby trees. Karen and Sands came to La Reserva about one month ago to buy some seedlings to plant around their new housing site, and were so impressed with what we are doing that they invited us to come to their larger property of pristine forest and see if we would have any luck finding some different species of trees. They still have approximately 10 hectares of old cattle pastures that they want to restore to indigenous forest, but with 98 forested hectares of primary forest.

The volunteers from La Reserva arrived at the entrance to the Spencer's road to meet with them and they drove a bit further to the forest. It was beautiful and the picking was great. They only had to walk along the edges of the forest and brought home 4 new species. This trip was more of a scouting expedition, finding their way there and getting their bearings, everyone agreeing that they would have to return there as soon as possibe.

In the province of Sao Paulo, Brazil a state law mandates that each reforested hectare must contain a minimum of 80 tree species and each must be represented by a minimum of 12 mother trees from different areas to ensure genetic variability. In the La Reserva nursery we have 60+ species at this time, and this opportunity for a new source of seedlings is very welcome. In the near future we are hoping to be able to provide over 80 species of native trees to landowners regenerating natural forest.

Thank you Sands and Karen, for your generosity in volunteering your beautiful forest as a new source of tree seedlings, with many new species, to the La Reserva crew. Thank you to all of you who showed up last Wednesday to help out. Everyone had a great time and the next day at the La Reserva nursery they,

                                                            

                                                              GOT PLANTING!!                                                       

Without You, Where Would We Be?

We certainly wouldn't be writing here on our own website if it weren't for the support that we have received in the past 8 months. This post is just to say thank you and give our gratitude to the people who have helped us to get this far.

Thank you to Michael Crist and Jennifer Cooper of the Global Renewal Foundation for your faith and friendship. You have opened the way for us to do this great work, with your skills at running a foundation and the generous first grant that you donated to us.

Thank you to Ric Wilson at the University of Missouri, Columbia and his students for the beautiful website they designed and put up on the Internet for us.

To Payson and Fran Sheets from Boulder, Colorado, a great big thank you and hug. You were the first ones to help us in the United States and made a special trip here to see what we were up to. You even cried Fran when you saw our work, which was an inspiration to me.

Thank you Sandra Shaw for teaching me how to use a computer and search the Internet in the very beginning. Now, my great advisor here at the Foundation in Costa Rica. The idea was only a small kernel, Sandy, that you let me plant and now we are all watching it grow.

To our old friend David Forester, who has taken the work of managing the website for us as a donation until we begin to get some funding. Thank you, so much, David. We will never forget what you have done.

Thank you to Roger Eichholz for donating the signs and giving us the idea for the seedling nursery.

Thank you to Gary Graham and Michele Glenn for your constant help with all of the organizational work, tours, planting and transportation. You two are unreplaceable.

I go to sleep each night with a big smile on my face just thinking of all of you and what an amazing journey we have embarked on. It is absolutely amazing and I love you all for joining me on this beautiful path. To close, I must thank my 26 year partner, Daniel Walter Spreen Wilson, and also the love of my life. If not for you I wouldn't have even been here. You were the qbsolute answer to my prayers from the first time I saw you.

June 4, 2007
Roberta Ward Smiley
Founder
La Reserva Forest Foundation

Environment Day at La Reserva

Today, June 4th, 2007 was Environment Day, or close to it. We don't have a calendar here that puts those kinds of days in it for us to see, but it's close enough for us. We didn't know that Environment Day was today when we asked for volunteers to come to La Reserva and help us plant the large seedlings from last year, out in 2 small ex-pastures. It just happened that way. Here is a picture of the one ex-pasture before we began to plant this morning:

There are a few small, volunteer trees growing up but we will fill up the open areas with the seedlings. That sun is VERY hot.

Here we can see the volunteers Mason Cazzedessus and Gary Graham along with Omar Munoz and Daniel Spreen unloading the wheelbarrow, digging hoses and planting the trees.

This is a close up of Mason. These trees have gotten very large for their small nursery bags. When they are planted out they really take advantage of the new freedom for their roots and grow SUPER fast.

This is a close up of Gary. He is planting a Poro Machete (Erythrina lanceolata) seedling.

Here is Daniel and our dog Josh. The dogs had a great time, as well. In the trees just to the east of us, only 15 meters away, a large family of Mantled Howler Monkeys were eating and socializing.

The field after we finished. We ended by ploanting almost 200 trees in about 4 hours. We began to plant the field next to this after lunch, but it was very hot in that sun and everyone had done enough. We will finish it this next Wednesday.

Thank you to Gary Graham and Mason Cazzedessus for showing up today and helping us. We couldn't have done it without you. The monkeys thank you, as well.

Mason ended up taking 2 nice trees home to plant in his yard and 2 Passion Fruit vines.

Now as I write the rain is coming down hard. Thunder is getting closer and all is well for our little trees. All morning we asked for this rain to give these newly transplanted a well deserved drink.

Today, Wednesday June 6th we still had a part of this last old pasture to plant and Becky Enman came to volunteer. Here are the last photos of our Environment Day planting. Thank you Becky for showing up and helping us for these few hours.

Becky Enman planting a Cirri seedling. Not as hot today.

Me, Roberta, squinting in the bright sun.

Omar Munoz, Becky Enman and Roberta Ward Smiley finishing this ex-pasture. It only took us 1 1/2 hours to finish today. Yeah!!! Enjoy the new freedom all of you babies.

 

LET'S ALL GET PLANTING!!!