It’s happening! The Women Rangers of the Macaw Recovery Network are building a tree nursery in their northern Costa Rican community of Boca Tapada. The beauty of it is this small nursery will have the potential to help save the Great Green Macaw from extinction and invigorate the rural district economy.
The Disney Conservation Fund is covering the building costs of the nursery, and each Ranger is receiving a stipend for her work. The women plan to raise about 7,000 trees from now through mid-2024 and, along the way, reforest macaw habitat with these trees. As they go, they’ll also coordinate wildlife conservation activities among some 200 local children.
More than a year ago, the six Women Rangers began germinating seeds in their homes and learning how to plant and care for Mountain Almond trees, the macaw’s tree-of-choice for food and nesting. Just last month, they reached an agreement with the canton of San Carlos, giving them permission to use community property for a nursery.
After signing the legal documents April 18, the women began turning their 400 square-foot plot of clayey soil into a nursery for 10 different species, including Mountain Almond, Titor, and Monkey Comb. They’ve built a wooden storage shed, where they’ll keep their tools and supplies. They’ve started on worktables and small boxes to germinate seeds in and gotten bamboo posts from the community to erect a shady area for the seedlings.
The soil will need amending with compost, dried leaves and rice husks, and the Rangers will need to pipe in water. The entire nursery, of course, will have to be fenced in to keep out dogs and chickens, who would love nothing more than to dig up anything the Rangers put in the ground.
A new nursery also means time spent collecting seeds from the wild. Mountain Almond, the Rangers can find on the ground, clean the outsides to expose the fruit and sand them a bit to allow water to get in once the seeds are planted. For other species, the Rangers spread sheets, or “seed traps,” then gather the seeds that plop down from the treetops.
Elvida is the most familiar with the different species. She’s worked in nurseries and knows the care it takes to grow them. At a pine tree nursery where she worked, only women were employed because the seedlings are so delicate, she says.
While her husband ran their one-room grocery store out of their home in Boca Tapada, Elvida was germinating Mountain Almond seeds in preparation for the day when the Rangers would have their own nursery.
Now that it’s arrived, Elvida, Justina, Lilliam, and Carmen are the nursery managers while Maria Elena and Yendry handle the educational part of the Rangers’ work — teaching children about the Great Green Macaws and other wildlife that live around them.
The Rangers will begin their reforestation work this summer using seedlings from MRN’s nursery at its Great Green Macaw field station near Boca Tapada. With a successful start of their community nursery, the women could be planting within months the trees they’ve raised themselves for these critically endangered birds.
Peggy Harris
Volunteer writer for MRN