You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.   Saint Bernard

At the age of 104, Clemente Campos is less of a threat to the womenfolk of Guanacaste than in the good old days. His son Gregorio recounts how, with the harvest stored away, his dad would mount up and ride off for months at a time, visiting friends in towns near and far, enjoying the fiestas and doing his best to romance whomever was available.

Although he gave up chopping his yard some five years ago and is a bit feeble nowadays, don Clemente is still a braggart about his past accomplishments. Close at hand is a prime example. His home.

More than half a century ago, don Clemente and two of his older sons hauled pochote and Guanacaste logs out of the forest and up onto what used to be known as a sawbuck. There, with a two handled saw, a guy on top and one on the bottom, they hand sawed the lumber for the house, stud by stud, rafter by rafter and clapboard by clapboard. Fifty years later he can still point out some of the irregularities, recount the stories.

Long after don Clemente is gone, the boards from his house will be taken apart and used in another construction, perhaps a house, more likely a shed, or some really smart furniture maker will painstakingly craft the dried, dimensionally stable, priceless heartwood into a pricey objét d'art.

Recently I read an article which predicted that energy issues and climate change would be the primary forces shaping the 21^st century. Let's take another look at don Clemente's house.

For those who understand their plant physiology, the modest structure is just a bunch of sunlight that fell on a part of Guanacaste a long time ago, CO2 from the atmosphere back then, and a much smaller amount of minerals from the soil. The energy from the ultraviolet spectrum of the sunlight-the same part that fries you on the beach-is kind of stuck inside the wood.  Photosynthesis makes simple sugars inside the leaves, and later processes form starch, cellulose, lignin and a whole slew of other compounds, some of which actually protect the wood from rotting, and, in the case of guanacaste wood, make you sneeze like hell when you cut it. When you burn firewood, the stored sunlight is liberated as heat energy, and the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

At the forefront of both scientific research and policy efforts worldwide are efforts to quantify and manage what is called "embodied energy" in both processes and products. China, already facing up to the challenges of energy scarcity in the future, recently took steps to regulate the export of goods which consume too much energy in their production. Let's go back to Clemente's house-from an energy perspective.

The muscle power-both animal and human-which transported and processed the lumber in the old wood buildings throughout Guanacaste, derived from solar energy captured in fields and farms of the region. This arrangement is a far cry from the fossil fuel era in which we now find ourselves dependent on precarious geopolitical arrangements for diminishing energy supplies precisely as the consequences of past petroleum consumption are shaping up as catastrophic changes in the earth's climate.

In contrast to don Clemente's home, current construction practices along the Gold Coast are highly energy intensive. From the quarrying, burning and crushing of stones for cement, to the gasoline and diesel required to transport everything from blocks made in Nicoya, floor tiles from Italy and tropical-flavor accessories shipped from Indonesia, the construction boom in Guanacaste is just a new chapter in the sad story of failing to find a softer path to a livable home.

The most noticeable contrast to what a prominent architect called the "tragedy" of current construction practices in Guanacaste is found nestled into the hills around the Cañafistula area, halfway between Tamarindo and 27 de Abril. Teak trees planted more than a decade ago are being harvested and used to build a range of structures from cabinas to restaurants and a health center. In another step towards a more sustainable, forest products management approach, half-round ‘discards' are painstakingly processed into rustic siding materials instead of being burned. There are many more technical issues which need to be addressed-both in handling of waste products, and in management and replanting of harvested areas-to insure that the use of locally harvested wood in construction is truly a step in the right direction of the coming struggle to reduce carbon emissions and keep the world economy going.

As luck would have it, as I was writing this article, a friend dropped who is an expert on solar energy and passive cooling design. He reminded me not to forget all the advantages that wood construction have over concrete in avoiding heat buildup-and subsequent cooling costs-in tropical climates. I told him to please leave me alone and go finish installing a solar panel. His parting shot as he walked out the door was something like "oh yeah, and all this concrete is going to come down like the walls of Jericho in the next quake."

Be that as it may, I can't claim objectivity. I was a carpenter before coming to Guanacaste and it is still a passion. Nothing beats the look and feel of wood. Felling a tree and crafting it into a dwelling, furnishings and returning the residues to the soil for the next round of growth is one of the most satisfying things one can do. Don Clemente knew that. What he doesn't know is that it's the wave of the future-or at least part of it.

Tom Peifer is an ecological land use consultant with 14 years experience in Guanacaste. Phone: 658-8018.  peifer@racsa.co.cr

El Centro Verde is dedicated to sustainable land use, agriculture and development

Web site: http://www.elcentroverde.org/