Savegre Adventure Trek

David: QERC is located within Los Santos Forest Reserve. I didn’t realize how little I knew about Los Santos Forest Reserve until I just recently took a very enlightening and inspiring trek through the reserve with John Cossel. This all started because John is interested in developing a class for Freshmen biology majors at NNU that will give them an inspiring field experience in order for all biology majors (pre-med included) to have a true experience in God’s creation rather than just in the books.

His idea is to hike the students from 14,000 feet in the paramo of Cerro de la Muerte to the Pacific Ocean. This would take about 7 days, including lectures and educational field activities along the way, and would be an experience of a lifetime. So, our goal was to scout out the trail and figure out if it is possible. We hiked two days of the trail on our own because we already knew the way, and then we hired a guide for the rest of the way. That is where our adventure started.

We started at Providencia, where we drove to, and hiked three days into and out of the reserve. Our guide’s name was Rafael, who goes by Rafa, and with him we hiked between 9 to 13 miles a day. The scenery was gorgeous and we came across a lot of wildlife and many signs of wildlife. There were numerous tapir tracks and at one point we could hear and smell a good number of peccaries. We saw a lot of birds. In fact, I saw 11 bird species I’ve never seen before. And because John was looking, we saw many herps. There were some pretty cool frogs and lizards and we saw 4 different snakes. And then at the end of day we stayed with families in the middle of nowhere with no road access on their small sustaining farms. It was a pretty sweet experience. One of the coolest parts of the experience is the network of families that live within the reserve who make up COOPESAVGRE. It is a cooperation in order to help these families make a living. There are stiff rules that no one can cut down trees or alter the land within the reserve and this applies to families that had already been living there. The penalty is jail time. Most of the families survive on the subsistence farming that they already had in place, which is mostly organic.

This co-op is developing the idea of rural adventure tourism. They have created hiking routes, have local guides from their families, and have a system of home stays to supply housing as you are trekking across the reserve. They explain it as way in which they can conserve the biodiversity of the forest and still make a living. They have a lot of pride in this project and one of the things they are most proud of is that they are supplying a form of tourism that is very meaningful. Those that spend time on these trekking trails will get to know the people who live on the land and see how they live. It is their desire that there is equal sharing going on of language and culture as they have visitors travel through the wild lands they call home. If you want to check it out you can go to their website at http://www.coopesavegre.com/

Our trip was a major success. Hopefully John will now have all the information and experience he needs to put together his potential class. And I hope that we can support the families of COOPESAVEGRE in the future. It is a model of conservation that just might actually make sense and find the balance of the conservation of both natural resources and human lives. We will see, I suppose.