Huetar Norte plantation forests

• Category: Forest Biomes.
• Geographic Location: Central America.
• Summary: These vast plantation forests in Costa Rica occupy a matrix of rainforest remnants and agricultural land.

In extremely humid conditions toward the north end of Costa Rica and continuing to the Nicaraguan border, very distinct forest ecosystems develop. In many ways, the Huetar Norte region is a typical example of tropical rainforest being replaced by other land covers because of human activities. In the past few decades, cattle ranching converted large expanses of rainforest to pasture lands, although this activity has become less profitable in recent years. Thus, landowners have favored reforestation to supply the wood market, creating vast extensions of forest plantations.

Today, the landscape is a combination of rainforest fragments, reforestation areas, pasture, abandoned pasture, and agricultural land. Uniformly distributed trees of the same species certainly contrast with the chaotic rainforest that used to dominate the area, creating the attractive and unique picture that defines the Huetar Norte region.

Compromising approximately 29,344 square miles (76,000 square kilometers), or about 14 percent of Costa Rica's surface, the Huetar Norte region includes six ecozones and is an economically important area for this small country. The name Huetar is derived from the languages of the original indigenous groups that used to inhabit the central part of the country and a small part of the area known today as the Huetar Norte region. Though the Huetares ethnic group was among the strongest and most organized indigenous group when the Spanish came, their culture practically disappeared, and the adoption of the name for the region is mainly to commemorate the indigenous past.

The economic value of the region comes mostly from livestock grazing and wood extraction. During the late 1990s, it was estimated that the region provided more than 40 percent of the wood used within Costa Rica. The wood supply came partly from logging of natural forest, but most of it was provided by the vast forest plantations, an industry that exploded in the area after 1988—the year in which a tax reduction was approved for land that was undergoing reforestation processes.

Biodiversity

Besides its importance in wood production, in the past two decades the region has been increasingly recognized as an area of high conservation value. In fact, the area is so diverse that the highest tree-biodiversity index for Costa Rica—110 species per 2.5 acres (1 hectare)—has been reported for the Huetar Norte region. From inundated flat lowland up to high mountain areas, unique plant and animal species here have developed within a matrix of native forest, plantation forest, pasture, abandoned pasture, and agricultural lands. This spread of land uses was originally covered mainly by lowland tropical rainforest and very humid tropical premontane forest, extending in elevation from 131 feet (40 meters) in the lowlands to 1,640 feet (500 meters) in the premontane areas.

Joining the main plantation forest species (see section below) are such naturally occurring trees, shrubs, flowering plants, and understory types as palm, magnolia, orchids, begonias, epiphytes, ferns, and such iconic standards as the passion flower (Passiflora tica) and ramonean heliconia (Heliconia ramonensis).

Among the endangered animal species of the Huetar Norte, predators include puma, jaguar, and cougar. Larger mammals include peccary, Baird's tapir (Tapirus bairdii), and three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus). The area also offers habitat for various monkey species, such as the white-headed capuchin (Cebus capucinus) and mantled howler (Alouatta palliata). Reptiles are abundant here, in the form of iguana, basilisk, coati, and snake.

Estimates of the number of bird species in the biome range as high as 200 or more; among the more recognizable are the clay-colored thrush (Turdus grayi), Montezuma's oropendola (Psarocolius montezuma), and black guan (Chamaepetus unicolor). These are joined by many parakeets, woodpeckers, toucans, tanagers, and raptors.

Conservation Efforts

This biome has undergone significant depletion of its forest cover and now is a highly fragmented landscape. Significant efforts have been invested to recover connectivity between forest areas in the Huetar Norte region, to promote sustainable development for its inhabitants and to protect animal species such as the great green macaw (Ara ambiguus). The best-known initiative is the San Juan-La Selva Biological Corridor. Among the conservation achievements of this corridor is the establishment of the Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Mixto Maquenque, created to halt the disappearance of the very few great green macaws left, and to protect their feeding and nesting sites: the almedro de montana trees.

Another 14 protected areas exist within the Huetar Norte and seek to safeguard the natural resources of the region. Plantation forests have been agents for reestablishing connectivity between these protected areas and other forest remnants, as well as for recovering degraded soils. Plantations of teak (Tectona grandis), gmelina (Gmelina arborea), chancho (Vochysia guatemalensis), laurel (Cordia alliodora), almendro (Terminalia amazonia), pines (Pinus spp.), cipres (Cupressus lusitanica), eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.), and others have been established on previous pasture lands. Even though their original purpose was commercial, these plantations have played an important role in helping regenerate previous pasture lands and creating a hospitable environment for wildlife.

Though the ecological services of plantations—including wood production, carbon sequestration, soil conservation and protection, and support for natural regeneration processes—are widely recognized, their use is controversial. In Huetar Norte, as well as in many other areas in the world, there is concern about the establishment of pure plantations of exotic species such as teak and gmelina. The use of mixed plantations of native species is broadly recommended in areas of biological importance such as the Huetar Norte, but pure plantations are preferred over mixed ones by industrialists.

Forest cover and connectivity are also being attempted through Payment for Environmental Services (PES) by the Huetar Norte Forestry Program, which was established more than a decade ago. During 2000–04, around 185,330 acres (75,000 hectares) came under a PES contract. Through the Huetar Norte Forestry Program, thousands of acres (hectares) are being protected from deforestation or are being reforested through plantations. In addition, more than 700 families in the region have benefited from these payments, making plantation forests an economic tool for supporting stability in the area. Hence, it is expected that plantation forests will keep increasing, or at least be sustained at current levels in the near-future, making these extensive green carpets distinctive elements of the landscape of northern Costa Rica.

However, like other regions of Costa Rica, the Huetar Norte is likely to be impacted by global warming in the form of trends toward warmer, drier weather patterns. Such trends are anticipated to be even more pronounced at the higher, premontane elevations within this biome. At the same time, decreased precipitation in the lowlands is projected to cause managers of some plantation forests to replant further upslope. Such a movement will impact the many integrated flora and fauna within the habitat to migrate to higher elevations. Something of a squeeze will be exerted upon these species, caught between drier lowlands and warmer uplands. The capacity for some species to adapt to quickly changing climate here will remain in question. In an attempt to combat climate change and save the environment, Costa Rica's government introduced the National Decarbonization Plan (NDP) as a long-term strategy to attempt to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The plan has been approved by many outsider organizations and was created in a manner consistent with the global goal of limiting the increase of global temperatures. Only time will tell if it is enough.

Bibliography

Gardner, Toby A., et al. “The Value of Primary, Secondary, and Plantation Forests for a Neotropical Herpetofauna.” Conservation Biology 21, no. 3 (2007).

Montagnini, F. and C. F. Jordan. Tropical Forest Ecology: The Basis for Conservation and Management. New York: Springer, 2005.

“National Decarbonization Plan.” Government of Costa Rica, 2018, faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/cos223688.pdf. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

Villate, Rodrigo, Lindsay Canet-Desanti, Oliver Chassot, and Guisselle Monge-Arias. El Corredor Biológico San Juan-La Selva: Una Estrategia Exitosa de Conservación (The San Juan–La Selva Biological Corridor: A Successful Conservation Strategy). San José, Costa Rica: Comité Ejecutivo del Corredor Biológico San Juan-La Selva, 2008.

Zuniga-Mendez, Christian. "Opportunity Cost of Natural Forest Management in the Arenal-Huetar Norte Conservation Area, Costa Park." Research Square, 17 Jun. 2020, doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-35216/v1. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.