Today, for our 2nd day at Monteverde we went on a tour in the Cloud Forest. We saw a ton of interesting species like a White-faced Capuchin, an agouti, a camouflage-like branch insect, and some other keystone species like hummingbirds. In fact, hummingbirds pollinate 10% of the plants so they’re really important. In all, apart from some weird red flies attacking my face and trying to bite me through my leggings, it was refreshing to experience the nature of the forest.

The Issue of Climate Change

One unfortunate thing I heard during the tour is that about 20 years from now the area won’t be considered a cloud forest anymore because of climate change. Climate change has already disrupted the rain pattern in Monteverde and the temperatures have been a bit off. So, that’s definitely an issue and species like the Quetzal will be heavily impacted.

That’s why conservation of nature is really important. Some ways that I’ve noticed today of how the workers try to preserve the cloud forest is by keeping track of the tourists and making the tour groups smaller. They also don’t allow anyone to use bug spray in the forest (Boy, I wish I would’ve put some on before the tour).

Overall, conservation, productivity, and sustainability are important when it comes to the issue of climate change. The reason why climate change has progressed is because there have been deficiencies in all of these categories. Currently, our world is in a linear economy where we are using resources from nature, building or doing what we want, and then discarding them after use. Clearly, that has endangered our environment over time.

A Focus on Sustainability

Out of those three categories, I would focus on sustainability because that involves conservation and productivity. Although sustainability will never be achieved fully, humans can take actions to improve the environment. What we need to do is focus on a circular economy which involves using resources, recycling, and giving back to the environment.

This is a way to increase sustainability and not further disrupt nature’s cycle. We also need to increase our productivity by making sure that we’re not wasting resources, we are focusing on what communities need, and are putting waste to use. Lastly, we need to further conserve nature by allocating certain pieces of nature to be undisturbed, but with species that will benefit it. All these actions tie into sustainability. Of course there’s way more to be done, but these are some ideas.

Some Nice Pics from Today