Erosion and Land Use Transitions in Costa Rica

Internship Report
Course: YEI-70318

BSc. International Land and Water Management

Wageningen University

Supervisor: xxx
Host supervisor: xxx

Wageningen, December 2011

1
Table of contents

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................3
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES……………………………………………………………………………………………..6
PERSONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES…………………………………………………………………………………………………….8
FUTURE EDUCATION AND CAREER………………………………………………………………………………………………….10

2
1. Introduction

The report follows the guidelines described in the BIL Completion Guidelines 2011 and the document
‘Format for Internship Report’, both delivered by the IWE and LDD staff members. It includes my
personal and professional learning outcomes and also a vision on my future education and career.
This internship report is about a research on erosion and land use transitions in a lower montane rain
forest in Costa Rica. The study area is the nature reserve Cloudbridge situated in San Gerardo de
Rivas, Perez Zeledon. Reserva Cloudbridge is a private nature reserve in Costa Rica, situated on the
foot of the Cordillas de Talamanca and one of the highest mountains in Central America. It was
created to preserve and reforest an important gap in the cloud forest adjoining the Chirripó Pacifico
river on the slopes of Mt. Chirripó.

Activities:

 Measurements & Field word:

o To conduct a map with the erosion states in the area some GPS data had to
measured with the GPS measuring device. The data was taken from areas where
landslides were observed. Other measurements included the observation of the A-
horizonts of two different areas with the land use pasture. The thickness and type of
horizont was measured and observed.

 Literature research:
o During this internship I have been reading a lot of literature. With help of the WUR
database I found a lot of articles. I have read over 50 articles that contained
information related to my research. Also in the library at the reserve Cloudbridge I
did found some useful books. Also previous researches done at Cloudbridge gave me
useful information.

 Questionairs:
o I also participated in a questionnaire which was given in the village San Gerardo de
Rivas, as well as in the surrounding valleys. The meaning of this questionnaire was to
get a view of the problems around the subjects erosion and land degradation on the
pastures. Also questions related to the Payments of Environmental Services program
were attached but this was work of someone else. However, I also gained some
knowledge about this subject along the farms.

3
  Spanish lessons:
o At least one day in the week at Tuesdays I attend a Spanish lesson. The first intention
to do this was just to make yourself more understandable by the local population.
But another important stimulant was that I thought that it would be nice to speak
another language that is spoken all over the world. Also organizations in my further
career can have this kind of requirements in their application requirements.
I would like to stay practicing speaking the language for a long time, even when I am
back in Holland.

 Volunteer work:
o Another activity in which I sometimes attend was volunteer work. This contains
clearing the trails of the reserve by making use of a machete but also recycling
meetings with the locals organized by the Bandera Azul Programm. I also picked
some coffee with the locals on really steep slopes.

 Meetings with supervisor

o Meetings with my supervisor were mainly meant to show my progress and to ask
advice. My supervisor normally also participated in the field work.

Tasks:

My research in Costa Rica was more an individual research instead of an arranged function within a
project. This is important because this dramatically decreases the amount of tasks that my supervisor
would gave me. Giving a presentation about my work for the community is one of the tasks that had
to be fulfilled. The presentation is added in the annex. This presentation was in English and was
presented to only the English speakers of the community. For this reason I also had to explain my
research outcomes into detail with one of the contact members of the community. Later my
outcomes will be presented to whole the community during community presentations. This
presentation will also be given in other communities with the intention to increase reforestation and
decline erosion rates in other areas that are less forested. When I wanted a meeting I mostly had to
ask for it myself.

4
Organisations visited:

 Bandera Azul Ecologica:

Programa Bandera Azul Ecologica is a nation-wide program
designed to empower communities in the areas of environmental
and public health. Volunteers earn the Blue Flag for their
community, school, nature reserve or business by ensuring that
standards are met for sustainable clean air and water practices,
environmental education, recycling, and conservation efforts.
(http://www.sangerardocostarica.com/about/bandera-azul-ecologica/)
(http://www.blueflag.org/)

 Audubon Green Leaves

o Internationally recognized, the Audubon Green Leaf™ Programs
provide hotels essential support to motivate and educate staff on
environmental best practices. The eco-rating level requires a complete,
professional audit of the entire operations, verifying a hotel’s eco-
rating of one to five Green Leafs, while also providing an extensive
recommendation report for the hotel to keep striving forward.

 Organic farm Trish

o I also visited an organic farm in San Gerardo de Rivas. This is not really an
organization yet but the woman that owns the farm is planning to form the ideas she
has in an organizational structure to spread among other farmers.
She had an rotational chicken device to fertilize land and she tried to improve the
porosity of the soils by working with worms.

2. Professional learning objectives

 Land use transitions

Before my arrival in Costa Rica I had little to know knowledge about national land use
conversions. In Holland land use conversions took over a long time, but here in Costa
Rica most of the area is converted within a time of 50 years. Massive land use

5
 conversions still take place, but now in a reverse. This means that pasture fields are
nowadays turned back into secondary forest. Most of this conversions are subsidized
by the modern Payments Environmental Services program. I learned about the
effects and causes of these conversions in many different perspectives. For example;
some economic perspectives are taken into account, but also environmental
perspectives. Ways of gaining more knowledge about this subject involved
questionnaires, literature research and observations.

 NGO’s
Before this internship I had little to no experience with working in a Non
Governmental Organization. It was interesting to see how the financing system in
such a organization works. Most of the incoming finances are just based on
donations. Besides the reserve in Costa Rica the reserve is part of an NGO in New
York. This NGO does posses another nature reserve in South Africa. Both the reserves
are private property but open for visitors. These visitors are the main source of the
incoming donations and are an important part of the financing system. Besides
donations the reserve Cloudbridge also receive state funds in cooperation with the
PSA program, the so called payments for environmental services.

 Payments for Environmental Services (PES)

o Before I arrived in Costa Rica I red some articles about the system of how
environmental services in Costa Rica were subsidised. After my arrival the concept
came up more and more. The director of the reserve clarified me how the concept
was involved in the finances of the reserve Cloudbridge. After some more meetings
with people and questionnaires among the farmers it emerged that there were a lot
of people that didn’t know anything about the program. Even people that lived in
Costa Rica for a very long time. The concept kept my interest and is also involved in
my research. Ways of gaining more knowledge about this subject involved
questioners and literature research.

 Sustainable Eco-tourism
o In Costa Rica I have visited a lot of nature reserves and national parks. However
these parks are highly susceptible to tourism, management of the parks are mostly
aware of the risks of tourism to unique environmental circumstances. I noticed for

6
 example that for a specific park, the national park Chirripo, the daily amount of
people that can enter the park is set to 40 people. In this way there is not too much
pressure on the sensitive ecosystem. Also a lot of money that people pay to enter
parks is set for maintaining the parks. This is more important in the eyes of the park
officers than for example improving the local infrastructure. Most of the parks do
have a register office and they ask you polite to register before entering the park. In
this way they know exactly how much people enter the park on a normal basis and
they can verify the environmental effects to the pressure on the nature caused by
visitors. The reserve Cloudbridge is highly involved in a project that preserves the
local watersheds. You can say they have a high eco-tourism potential, however, they
help the eco-tourism in the community to be as sustainable as possible.
o I must say that before coming to Costa Rica I didn’t had much experience with
tourism, and so also not with eco-tourism. However, I think the subject is really
interesting, and I have faced a lot of effects and side effects of tourism within the
organizational structure of projects and parks. I think the subject is so interesting
that I am planning to do the minor; Tourism, Policy and Development to gain much
more knowledge and experience about this specific subject.

3. Personal learning objectives

 Dealing with the language difference

o Before I came to Costa Rica I had a little till none knowledge about the Spanish
language. I thought this was not yet a problem and if necessary Spanish translators
would be available to help me. I begun with studying the language a couple of weeks
before departure. This was not really sufficient and I decided that Spanish lessons
were needed to improve my level of Spanish.
o The first lessons started in the second week after arrival. First we started with two
lessons a week. Because this took too much time I decided to keep it at one lesson a
week. The lessons and the homework that came with it helped me to achieve a
certain level Spanish. I now can make myself understandable and I can actually have
small conversations in Spanish.
o I could have achieved a higher level of Spanish when I also had to speak more
Spanish within the reserve itself but unfortunately this was not the case.

7
 o I would like to improve my Spanish also after my internship because I became to
realize that it may come in handy to speak another foreign language. Especially a
language that is spoken in so many places of the world.
o However, I did not really had problems with the language problems during my
internship. Costa Rican people are very friendly and patient. They take the time to
listen to you and they give you the time to explain yourself. Also most times
someone with a certain level of Spanish was available so my questions were always
understood.

 Being professional during the internship

o This learning goal really emerged when I had meetings with my supervisor or when I
was meeting people. Before I had a meeting with a person about a specific subject I
did first a literature review about the specific subject. In this way I can give the
conservation a more professional character. Also I tried to link some statements that
I made with relevant literature that made the statements more strong and hopefully
also more professional.

 Self Responsible & Defining research focus

o I had to manage my own time, and I had to form my own deadlines since the whole
project had not that project structure that I expected. I constantly had to work to my
research focus myself. Normally while working on a big project such as this research
we did it in groups and was the group responsible. Now I had my own responsibility
and I had to manage this myself. I think that this internship gave me a lot of more
experience with this kind of things that improved my way of working and improved
my sense of responsibility.

 Being well planned every day

o Planning within my research was a very important component of my stay here
because my research in Costa Rica was more like an individual research instead of an
arranged function within a project.

8
 o The first couple of weeks I did a lot of literature research. I did a lot but the work was
not really structured. Before I knew the time passed by. I realized after some time
that my planning schedule situated in the proposal was not the most realistic
schedule. After reaching this point I knew that something had to change.
o I designed a time table that represented all the major research activities like the
workshops, and the presentation. Now I had something to focus on. Also I noted the
times for measurements within this time table. I did one test measurement so that I
knew how much time it would take to do the measurements.
o After finishing this time-table I was more aware of when it was time to do
measurements and when it was time to read background material and do literature
research.

 Being creative in unexpected situations

o Before I came here I had of course a vision about the area and the organization.
But when you arrive you always get another image of the whole and I had to adjust
my research proposal after a couple weeks of work. Some data that I thought that
was available was presented in a way in which I couldn’t really use it. So I had to
think of doing something else that had strong relations with my research. Erosion
research was my first goal but I had to transform this concept into land degradation
linked to land use transitions. Because actual erosion measurements were quite
difficult to do, especially in the rain season, I had to think of something else.
My supervisor helped me to think of the thickness of the A horizonts and with this
concept I could set the link with erosion on the pastures. Furthermore I modeled the
erosion rate by making use of an erosion model and with the help of literature I
found data of the sediment yield in the river Chirripo. I thought it was quite difficult
to deviate from the original plan, but I think while doing a research you have to be
flexible. I think that the results of my research are largely due to flexibility and
creativity. However, my supervisors really helped me to give me new visions on the
situation and their positive criticism was most welcome.

4. Future education and career

The internship is finished successfully and now is the time to work on the BSc. Thesis. After this my
education will come to the next step; specialization or broadening my horizon. This will be done by

9
following specific courses in the form of a minor. I am planning to choose for the minor Tourism,
Policy and Development given at Wageningen University. The minor combines tourism, international
development and nature conservation with socio-spatial and policy analyses. The eco-tourism I have
seen in Costa Rica did actually enhanced this choice. A lot of regions in Costa Rica are developed by a
massive increasing form of eco-tourism in the last decades. It would be interesting to link the effects
of eco-tourism to land use transitions and soil and water related practices. Also the concept of
sustainable eco-tourism interest me. I tend to specialize more in the policy sides of suchlike
environmental and tourism related projects.

Also the experience to be in another country and also another continent is worth to take in
consideration while thinking of a possible job in the future. It is nice to be in another country far
away from Holland for a couple of weeks and in this case 3 months. Though I think that this will be
something to do occasionally. I would like to have a kind of job on the policy side in which I will spend
the most time in Holland but where sometimes visits abroad are needed.

10