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Sustainable Development Workshop: Analog Forestry and Green Building Design Summary | Workshop Schedule | Project Descriptions | Accomodations | Cost | About Analog Forestry This is a 6-day, two-part workshop on sustainable development in Quebrada Arroyo, Costa Rica from December 29th - January 3rd. This conference is designed to contribute to the sustainable development of tropical regions. It is meant for tropical landowners, local and international development NGOs, university students, and individuals interested in sustainable development. December 29th - December 31st
During the workshop a number of key conservation projects will be planned that will be implemented over the next year. These projects play a key role in the sustainable development and reforestation efforts in the Cerro Nara/Manuel Antonio region of Costa Rica. In addition, participants will learn skills as they are applied to real world situations. Quebrada Arroyo: Quebrada Arroyo is a sustainable rainforest community located in the mountains of Cost Rica's Central Pacific Coast. After years of traditional farming and a vanilla crop that fell victim to a blight, many of the residents of Quebrada Arroyo chose to adopt a new way of life. They did this by forming a cooperative which divided the labor of the community among the residents. For instance, older members of the community produce and sell fruit while younger members manage the community lodge and tourism project. With a United Nations grant of $20,000, Quebrada Arroyo built a community lodge with cabins and a restaurant and began a tourism cooperative which brings visitors to its beautiful community that surrounds a canyon with waterfall. In addition, the residents permanently ended agriculture on a large piece of land and named it a private reserve. While off to a good start using strictly organic agriculture and some agro forestry, Quebrada Arroyo still needs some assistance in order to be a truly sustainable community. Through Analog Forestry the residents of Quebrada Arroyo will be able to reforest their land with a productive secondary forest that will improve their economic situation, protect their watershed, provide habitat for wildlife, and increase the overall attractiveness of the community to foreign tourists. Playa Rey: Recently this 15 km, 200 meter wide strip of ocean front land was annexed to Manuel Antonio National Park. All of the homes and vacation shelters were removed and the area is being prepared for reforestation. Though remnants of the mangroves remain, the majority of Playa Rey was cleared for coconut production (a non-native species). In order to restore Playa Rey, a detailed survey of topography and plant life must be performed and a plan must be written. This workshop will work on the design of the reforestation and conservation plan of Playa Rey. Once it is complete, this land will serve as a haven for many endangered species including the mono titis of Manuel Antonio, the leather back sea turtle, and many of the great herons and other birds that will utilize its wetlands. In addition, the mangroves will filter the river of silt that is suffocating the coral reef located off shore and will provide a barrier to protect the local population from possible tsunamis. The fee for the workshop does not include accommodations. Room in the Quebrada Arroyo Community Lodge and the Posada Quepoa Eco Lodge can be booked through Eco Era and are the closest facilities to the project site. Quebrada Arroyo: Quebrada Arroyo consists of two cabins with four sets of bunk beds in each. A bathroom is found in each cabin and has cold running water. Cabins are new, clean, and spacious. Each cabin has a balcony with breathtaking views over the canyon and of the mountains. There is a restaurant located on the grounds.
Posada Quepoa: The Posada Quepoa is located in the community of Londres and is 45 minutes from Quebrada Arroyo. It consists of four cabins, each of which has two bedrooms - one with a queen bed and the other with two twin beds. Each cabin has a bathroom with hot and cold running water. A balcony on each cabin overlooks the Rio Naranjo. There is a restaurant located on the grounds.
The cost for the workshop includes all activities involved including lunches and transportation to other project sites. Accommodations, breakfasts, and dinners are not included.
Please download the registration form here For more information please contact info@ecoera.org or call 888-382-6720 1. Background Considering the current decline in the state of some of the world’s forests and the impact this is having on local communities, it is not surprising that forestry issues today are no longer focused solely on maximizing timber production. By necessity, some forest management systems now incorporate a more holistic approach by recognizing the importance of issues such as biodiversity, sustainability, traditional uses, medicine, carbon sequestration, soil conservation, watershed management, and research into the ecological function of tree species. Management systems that address the widest range of these issues are needed in order to prevent further loss or deterioration of natural forests and indigenous culture. Analog forestry is one of the most promising new technologies for addressing these needs.The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has assisted with analog forestry training through its support of international workshops that have brought together leaders of environmental and community organizations to learn about these techniques and to then begin to implement them with their own organizations. This support facilitated the creation of an International Analog Forestry Network (IAFN) that now includes members in Sri Lanka, Peru, Philippines, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Canada. Members are actively involved in the restoration of degraded agricultural land to productive forest ecosystems through the practice of analog forestry. 2. The Challenge and Opportunity There is an increasingly urgent need to support ecological production systems that provide benefits directly to the producer while at the same time minimizing the impact that these systems have on the natural environment. All over the world, local communities are impacted by development schemes that extract natural resources at an unsustainable rate, causing environmental degradation and providing few benefits to the local people. Important decisions on resource use are often made far from the people who are most affected by them. Within communities, farmers and forest workers are losing the traditional skills that were passed on from generation to generation that allowed them to farm and sustainably use the natural resources for generations. Over the last fifty years, there has been an enormous growth in the use of agrochemicals, a shift towards decreasing diversity of crops, and an increase in the use of monocultures in both farming and forestry. These trends have impacted the health of the soil and the ecosystems, and are threatening peoples’ livelihoods as lands become increasingly less productive. Analog forestry holds a great potential for reversing the degradation of the world's forests. In tropical countries alone, there are nearly 200 million hectares of degraded land in upland watersheds-- lands that are subject to serious soil erosion, to disappearing biodiversity, and to declining economic productivity. Most of these lands were once covered by forests but were cleared for farming and ranching in decades past. Analog forestry can accelerate the natural restoration by planting native tree and shrub species that were present before the forests were cleared, returning barren wastelands to healthy, forest ecosystems. The social and economic benefits can be as great as the environmental ones. Local people assume a leadership role in analog forestry not only in restoring the natural environment in which they live but also in the economic benefits that come from the management of more productive, more sustainble ecosystems. 3. Effect on People The effect that these two forces -- degradation of the natural resources and the lose of traditional knowledge -- is having on people in resource-dependent communities is devastating. Once rural communities lose the resource base upon which their livelihoods depend, whether through resource extraction or through loss of land productivity, they are forced to look to other forms of income to support their families, which in many cases, are not readily available. Young people drift to the cities in search of work, leaving behind their families and losing traditional ways; the economy increasingly shifts towards urban areas, leaving rural areas impoverished; and further environmental degradation occurs due to human pressures on an increasingly limited resource. 4. What is Analog Forestry? In response to this crisis that is developing within rural communities around the world, a wide range of holistic management practices have been developed at the local level. Many of these are based on the belief that we should be able to learn from natural systems and from traditional knowledge built up through generations. Analog forestry is one of those systems. Analog forestry is a complex agroforestry system where farmers re-create the structure and ecological functions of the local natural forest ecosystem by planting tree and other plant species that provide them with a range of products for personal consumption or sale in the marketplace. Farmers benefit from the diversity of products that they harvest while at the same time restoring the natural environment and supporting key ecological processes. Analog forestry is based on the traditional forest home gardens that are common in Asia, gardens that are dominated by a diversity of tree and other plant species in multiple canopy levels. The NeoSynthesis Research Centre in Sri Lanka started with this home garden model and experimented over a period of fifteen years to develop productive ecological systems that were similar in structure and function to the original forest ecosystem. The results of these experiments were the first analogous or analog forests. 5. Certified Products from Analog Forestry Network member organizations have now been working with producer groups for a number of years which has led to discussions about how to gain broader recognition of the benefits accrued from the analog forestry systems. One possible avenue is the development of a system of certification that recognizes and rewards the ecological and social values inherent in the system. Certified products coming from an analog forest would assist the farmer in accessing markets and bring potentially higher economic returns. The system of certification that has been developed is called Forest Garden Products that recognizes the holistic nature of analog forestry systems and ensures that products with this label contribute to ecological resilience, increasing biodiversity, and support for local producers. Certification is granted to those farmers practicing sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation which supports environmental stability. Farmers must practice organic farming to be granted certification - no pesticides or artificial fertilizers are used. This focus on organic practices is one way that the farmer helps the forest mature into a system of high biodiversity. 6. Impact Analog forestry has a direct impact on local producer groups. It is aimed primarily at producers who are interested in diversifying their crops and increasing the productivity of their land. They are benefiting from an ecological system of production that is helping to restore the productivity of their agricultural soils. In addition, the areas under restoration are increasing in plant biodiversity which is helping to attract many of the original animal species back. The technology of analog forestry is quite easily replicable in many different forest areas where individuals or communities have a strong understanding of the ecological principles and characteristics of the local forest community. It is expected that through the development and marketing of Forest Garden Products, the system of certification for analog forestry, wider recognition will be gained for the products that are harvested from these systems. This recognition will serve to reinforce the value of the work being undertaken by participating farmers groups and will potentially lead to an increasing number of communities becoming involved in analog forestry and the restoration of degraded ecosystems. This information is reprinted from a report of the Forestry Advisors Network of the Canadian International Development Agency. |
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