If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem

        Last month I recounted a lifelong odyssey of environmental learning that led to putting down roots in Guanacaste. (Environmentalist to developer-an Eco-logical Progression, The Howler.......) The surprise in store was the speed at which the sprawling development I thought I had left far behind would catch up with me. I had no idea that tropical tracts, Mediterranean-style MacMansions and neo-New Mexico condos would come to replace the fields and forests of my adopted paradise.

            The severity of the recent rainy season only served to justify my concerns about the problems of rampant development. Landslides, road washouts and streams blowing out of their channels are just a few of the reminders that, especially in the tropics, nature holds the upper hand. I knew all along there was a better way, a softer approach to living on the land in our region. My inspirations were twofold.

            For more than twenty years, the writings of Australian forest ecologist, Bill Mollison, have influenced my approach to developing the 12 hectares of forest which surround El Centro Verde. The approach to human settlement in "permaculture." is to maximize positive interactions-and minimize negative impact-between the built environment and the natural one. The ramifications for development in Guanacaste are numerous, but can be neatly grouped within the venerable environmentalist slogan, "Think globally, act locally." (It is noteworthy that even the CNN web site now features a section "Planet in Peril.")

            My friend and partner, Will Raap has long urged me to take off the critical writer's headgear and put on a more positive, activist hat. His vision, networking and support have led to educational programs, scientific research on hydrology and bird habitat and planning and restoration efforts in the Andamojo Valley where we live. Our next collaboration is an eco-village-Pueblo Verde.

            Pueblo Verde will employ a range of techniques in planning, design, construction and landscaping to assure a net positive effect on the water balance of the valley in which it is located-and assist in our broader efforts to restore the year-round flow of the Rio Andamojo.

            Pueblo Verde will encourage homeowners to use natural wastewater treatment systems, both to avoid contamination of groundwater and to recycle nutrients into verdant green zones throughout the dry season.

            Pueblo Verde offers builders a chance to use sustainably harvested lumber from on site and to participate in a long-term forest management plan. The goal: increase forest diversity, provide year-round food for residents, habitat for wildlife and maximize the uptake of atmospheric carbon. Bamboo groves offer a lush, fast growing, alternative building material for the creative, do-it-yourself type.

            By Guanacaste development standards, our first step was unusual. The streams of the entire project feed into a series of runoff catchments and sediment basins. This system ensures that when earth movement begins, to the maximum extent possible, our efforts will neither endanger those living downstream nor add to the sediment that is increasingly choking the rivers and estuary of our valley. In fact, we use it to fertilize the dry season gardens throughout the project.

            Pueblo Verde aims to be a living, evolving demonstration of what developers can-some might say should-do, to leave Guanacaste in better shape for current and future residents, regardless of their national origin and socio-economic status.

            Cynical readers, or those with a critical editorial eye might well mistake these words as an advertisement disguised as an article. I would encourage them to do two things. Read a weeks' worth of headlines on global environmental threats. Talk to anyone downstream-or downhill--from recent developments in Guanacaste, in the wake of the ferocious rainy season.

Pueblo Verde is a more than just response to global and regional issues based on a decade of experience and innovation. It is a challenge to developers with far greater resources to put their money where their marketing is.

Pueblo Verde, coming soon to a forested valley not far from a town called Paradise.

(published in the Howler 12/07) 

Tom Peifer is an ecological land use consultant with 12 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/