I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them. ~James Russell Lowell
During June and July we again got to enjoy five interns from Agrosup, Dijon, France, A National Institute of Agronomy, all five are working on their Masters in Agriculture. The worked on a number of research projects including Bio Monitoring, large mammal monitoring and they conducted a community survey on sloths. The group included Elisa, Flore, Laura, Marie and Sebastian.
We were visited by two groups of campers from Wilderness Ventures http://www.wildernessventures.com/international-adventure/costa-rica/ the enthusiastic groups did two enhancement plantings the first along the Sendero Rio and the second on the lower portion of Senedro Montana. An enhancement planting is going back into an area that was previously planted and adding climax species and a wider diversity of plants to the area. In this case we added a mixture of pioneer species, climax species and native fruiting trees.
“Planting trees is fun, we even named ours”
Cara and her daughter Samantha from New York joined us for the month of August; Cara is producing a documentary on Cloudbridge and the local San Gerardo community.
In August we here pleased to have Cloudbridge founder Genevieve Giddy visit for two weeks with her partner Charles Ramsey. Charles spent most of his stay working on the Cloudbridge orchid collection.
The Cloudbridge Advisory Board met and Welcomed Oren Marciano to the Board. Oren has previous research experience in the San Gerardo area.
Work on the Environmental Study Center continues and in August the stars finally aligned and we got the new micro hydro system up and operational, it now provides power to the Study Center and the Casa Amanzimtoti.
August 20th Cloudbridge was one of the sponsors of the first Clasica De Las Aguas Eternas, a 10 Km race through Cloudbridge and down the Chirripo trail to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Chirripo. Which was immediately followed by a three day celebration of the Costa Rica National Parks, hosted by the Chirripo National Park? Here we are setting up.
August 27th Cloudbridge in partnership with Hotel De Montana Pelicano was the site of the second annual community tree planting. This year six local volunteers continued the enhanced planting up the Sendero Montana. Planting 400 primarily Cecropia and Oaks.
It is the rainy season, we are receiving 1-3 inches of rain most afternoons and evenings, the seedlings love it, and however it does cut down on our time in the field. And another day ends at Cloudbridge