What’s up at LRFF

    Whew! We’ve been really busy here in Costa Rica. The LRFF was invited to participate in the Wetlands Day celebration here in our town of Tilarán, Guanacaste, Costa Rica with an exhibit in the park for 3 days, February 15 – 17. Here are a couple of photos of our booth and the interested passersby.

    Here are three of us manning the booth early in the morning, before all of the people began to show up. Gary Graham, Betsy Whyte and me.

   
Body language tells the story in this photo, with everyone leaning in to see what we are all about.

    We sold $280.00 worth of caps and t-shirts, bringing the grand total of trees to be planted when the rains begin to over 600. This will be just about enough to plant in the new biological corridor we are working on now that will connect the La Reserva forest island with the next large forest to the west via a 4 meter by 1000+ meter long strip.

Thank you to all of you who were there to help us with the exhibit. Namely:

•    Helen Hollenbeck for the great artwork, donation of maps and materials.
•    Gary Graham for his endless help manning the booth and transporting all of the contents thereof twice a day.
•    Mary Blizzard/Kelly for the help with the storyboards and manning the booth.
•    Betsy and David Whyte, Sandra Shaw, Wally Razanauskas and Michelle and Tim for the help with manning the booth each day and for enduring the super loud music coming from the huge speakers directly behind our exhibit.

Without all of you the exhibit wouldn’t have been such a success or even happened at all. We sure are all lucky to be working together.

    The most exciting news from those three days is the signing up of over 200 hectares of lands by owners, promising to participate with all or part of their properties in the La Reserva forest regeneration project. Two owners expressed interest in the foundation buying their entirely forested (primary) properties for perpetual ly protected status.

    Our newly elected President and second term Treasurer, Fran Sheets, from the LRFF in the United States came for a visit and to get caught up on all of the business that has taken place in this past year. She brought her friend, Don Roper, an economist from the University of Colorado.

    We worked hard planning the tree corridor that will be planted when the rains begin in June, connecting the La Reserva forest island to the next large forest to the west. Worked out a budget and work plan, had meetings here and as a conference to the U.S., worked with David on our website and inspected a large primary forest area that is being offered to LRFF for conservation.  Don worked on a new photo album at www.picasaweb.google.com under La Reserva Forest Foundation.  We will be adding more photos as time goes on, but be sure to check it out and let us know what you think of it.

   It was a busy 5 days and we finished it off with a very mellow dinner party in Fran’s honor at Mike and Marcy Wagner’s cozy lakeside home.

This is titled the Bored Members, from left, Don Roper, Fran Sheets and Daniel Spreen. That’s me up top.

And finally, a new photo of Sandra and Roger’s private reforestation area this month. Included are all of the photos taken there since August of 2006 so that you can all see the progress of their little forest. Remember this is less than 2 years since it was planted.

         

August 2006

March 2007

October 2007

February 2008

    This is the dry season so in this last photo the foliage isn’t as full but they are growing taller virtually every day. We will post another photo this rainy season again. This progress should convince even the toughest cynic. Come on, everybody and..

                                                            LET’S GET PLANTING, NOW!!

Comments

[Mary B-K]

It's exciting to see all the positive things that are happening with LRFF. There is a great deal of support locally for the work Roberta and Dan are doing. Keep up the good work!!

[Mary B-K]

It's exciting to see all the positive things that are happening with LRFF. There is a great deal of support locally for the work Roberta and Dan are doing. Keep up the good work!!