By Liz Gagliardi
Walking along the trails near San Gerardo field station in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, the forest puts on symphony of rustling leaves, singing birds, and humming insects, with frogs and the occasional monkey joining the chorus. Beneath all these sounds, I hear the steady drumming of water flowing over the landscape in rivers or sometimes falling from the clouds as raindrops showering down through the canopy. Even when it wasn’t raining, by the time I had finished my hiking through the forest, I was damp from moving through the steady mist hanging in the air.
Water is an integral part of the rainforest and a key ingredient for the life that flourishes here. After all, what would a rainforest be without the rain? The forest acts as a sponge for all of this precipitation, the dense vegetation soaking up water from the air. What isn’t absorbed by the plants and soil collects and flows down streams and rivers, into larger bodies of water like rivers, Lake Arenal, and eventually the ocean. Along the way, thousands of people rely on this water to drink, for agricultural production, and to provide power from hydroelectric plants. Just within the 22,600 hectares of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, the headwaters (=source) of five watersheds are protected. This means that the water in the Arenal, Peñas Blancas, San Carlos, Guacimal and Aranjauez watersheds originates in the CER, where it is captured by and filtered through the forest and protected from pollution.
Watershed protection is among the most important ecosystem services provided by the rainforest. In fact, watershed protection is so vital that the beginnings of conservation in the Monteverde area can be traced back to the goal of maintaining a clean water supply. When a group of Quakers settled in Monteverde in 1951, one of the first things they did was set aside 553 hectares (1366 acres) of forest to ensure a reliable and clean water source. The establishment of this “watershed reserve” sowed the seeds for the conservation ethos that has become a cornerstone of Monteverde’s identity, although it was done for very practical purposes at first. The Quakers realized that without clean, potable water, their community would not be able to survive. The same is true for communities today, and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest and surrounding protected areas act as a protective buffer for the five watersheds that stem from it, just as that original protected area established by the Quakers did for their settlement.
It can be difficult to understand why the rainforest is so important for water conservation. After all, it seems the rain would still fall and rivers would still flow, even if the forest were cut down. However, without the roots of the rainforest to hold the soil in place, rainfall would quickly wash away all of the soil and nutrients that are held within it, making for very poor quality land for farming and a pretty barren landscape. Landslides would be more common, and the eroded soil would contaminate rivers downstream.
Additionally, much of the water that the rainforest harnesses is not actually from rain as it is traditionally understood. While it is true that a large amount of the precipitation does come from vertical rainfall, water from horizontal precipitation in the form of mist, clouds and fog contributes as much as 70% of the precipitation in Monteverde during some parts of the drier season. Without the rainforest, horizontal precipitation would be carried in the wind and never make it into the water supply. However, when the clouds and mist hit the forest, the water is collected by the plants and adds a significant amount to the supply that ends up in the surrounding watersheds and eventually might flow through someone’s faucet, onto farmland, or through a hydroelectric turbine to create electricity.
Not only is water a source of life, but also a source of power. Flowing water is a powerful force that can be used to create electricity through hydropower plants. The source waters protected within the CER flow into streams and rivers along which hydroelectric plants have been built to supply energy to homes and businesses throughout Costa Rica. Around 60-70% of Costa Rica’s energy comes from hydroelectric plants, which are a clean alternative to fossil fuels. The Arenal watershed, which is one of the five whose headwaters are protected within the CER, contributes an estimated 20-30% of Costa Rica’s hydroelectricity. This same watershed provides vital irrigation to the Guanacaste province.
The San Gerardo field station in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest also utilizes the power of water to generate electricity for the station. The hydroelectric plant that powers San Gerardo is nothing particularly fancy; in fact, when I saw it, I was surprised at how simple the technology really was. A series of pipes feed water through a tank to filter out debris. The water then flows into a series of smaller pipes, and onto a wheel with little cups. When the water fills the cups, it causes the wheel to spin. This spinning wheel, known as a pelton wheel, connects to an old industrial motor that has been repurposed to produce an electrical current. Thus, moving water is transformed into electricity, which is sent to the station to provide power for lights and basic electrodomestic appliances. The clean water flows back into the river, completing the clean energy loop.
When we think of rainforest conservation, we tend to think of saving the jaguars and protecting tree frogs, but protecting water for hydropower, agriculture, and drinking doesn’t always come to mind. However, without the ecosystem services of water purification and protection, and the sponge-like ability of the rainforest to capture water, these resources would be in jeopardy. While protecting the rainforest certainly benefits the wildlife that lives within it, humans need rainforest protection just as much, even if in less obvious ways like keeping the watersheds we rely on functioning smoothly.
Elizabeth Gagliardi successfully completed an internship with the Monteverde Conservation League and Children’s Eternal Rainforest from June to August 2018. She is a student at Lehigh University. Edited by Lindsay Stallcup.