Rob Bettaso

We were about midway through our ten-day trip when our guide, Jose, changed things up. Thus far, most of our days had been spent on various wildland trails (in wet jungles, along river edges, and in dry forest habitats) where we did our usual intensive birding (e.g., Jose calling to us in an urgent whisper: “Come quickly, there, a Rufous-tailed Jacamar!”). Today, however, he had taken us to a coffee plantation that was transitioning to an “eco-tourism” destination site.

Along with his six siblings, Jose was raised on a large farm that grew a variety of agricultural goods. Costa Rica (CR) is well known for exporting many, globally carved, tropical cash crops; including, not only coffee but also cacao, sugar-cane, bananas, pineapples, and palm-oil (although interestingly, as Jose had pointed out to us one day on a tour, currently, CR’s primary export to the U.S. is not agricultural, but medical supplies).

Anyway, at this point we were in the mid-elevations and the weather was sultry. In our van, we had climbed out of the even hotter lower country, where one could occasionally glimpse the Pacific Ocean, but we were not yet up to the relatively cooler “cloud forests.” Jose had made arrangements with a guy named Benjamin, who looked less like what I imagined a plantation-owner would look like, and more like a peasant share-cropper: dark skin reddened by the sun, wiry build, calloused hands, well-worn Levis, and a baseball cap. Ben didn’t speak English but since Jose did, we quickly learned that our goal for today was to find several species of birds that preferred the types of habitat that existed on some types of farmland (part of Ben’s spread was no longer under crop-production, and in fact, Ben was allowing much of it to revert to wild vegetation).

Some of Ben’s family had been on hand when we pulled up in the van, and I supposed they were getting used to groups like ours. We piled out of the van, 12 retired Americans and their Tico guide Jose, while our driver, Ricardo, stayed back to return order to his beloved vehicle, though he would later join us along our walking route. After a brief round of salutations with Ben’s family, we left them behind and set off swiftly, trying to keep up with Ben and Jose, who discussed amongst themselves, in quick and quiet Spanish, where we would go and what we would look for on our two-hour hike through torrid heat.

Despite the uncomfortable temperatures, we had fun looking for, and frequently finding, several species of birds (a type of owl, a species of crake, various hummers and woodpeckers, and a particular song-bird known as the Rufous-browed Peppershrike; which, given my sun-addled brain, I kept calling a “pepper-steak”). Via Jose, it had been interesting to learn about how Ben had big hopes of shifting his trade from the back-breaking labor of using his land exclusively for farming, by diversifying things so that he could add eco-tourism to his revenue-stream. Although Ben and Jose spoke in Spanish, when they weren’t talking about birds, I suspected Jose was giving Ben tips about how his own family farm had changed with the times and how Ben and his family might do the same.

When we returned to the van, all of us were sweaty and tired, and Ben’s wife took us to a shady spot where we could sit, rest, and enjoy refreshments. Some of Ben’s kids and a few neighbors had gathered around, and I wondered if they saw us for what we were: affluent and privileged, especially compared to them. After our siesta, we filed back into the van, and I imagined that some of the older guys who watched us load-up noted our expensive outdoor-wear, our pricy binoculars and camera gear, and our fancy new van stuffed full with possessions. What must they have thought? Perhaps they theorized: here are a dozen older Americans; they were born into wealth, live very long and easy lives, and have nothing more to do in their senior years than chase little birds around in our country. If that was what was going through their minds, well, they were not only perceptive and shrewd; they were also basically right….

In my lifetime, there have been several periods when I have been struck by the contrast between me and the citizens of a country I was working in or just visiting. Having spent seven years in tropical countries (including a few years in the Congo, which, next to the Amazon is the world’s largest tropical basin; and in the Philippines, which also ranks very high in terms of acres remaining as tropical rain-forest, but behind such places as New Guinea, Indonesia, and Indo-China), I have always been acutely aware of how I, as a “Northern Man” (i.e., born into a temperate region of the globe), am so poorly adapted, physically, to the tropics. Moreover, it is also noteworthy how the native inhabitants of the temperate realm are so much more prosperous than those living in the tropics (and, keep in mind, the “tropics” includes not only the “humid tropics” that receive a lot of rain, but also those vast portions of the planet that are very dry: the so-called “arid tropics”).

In grad-school I took a class in African politics (it was an unrequired “elective” not related to my major of Fisheries Management, but of interest to me because of the years I had spent on that continent) where for a final exam the professor asked us to write an essay on which of the three factors had caused the relatively slower development of so many African nations: 

1) the harsh physical environment; 2) the negative practice and legacy of colonialism; or 3) post-colonial, domestic political short-comings. In my response, I suggested that all three factors, and probably many more, could be partially to blame, but that factor number one (a harsh environment) seemed like the initial and most impactful cause.

My reasoning, based on my own experiences, was that it is perpetually so very hot in much of Africa (and pretty much everywhere on the planet below 10,000’ in elevation and between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn; or, in other words, 23.5 degrees North of the Equator and 23.5 degrees South of the Equator) that it stifles one’s ability to do hard work for prolonged periods of time. Keep in mind, that many tropical countries, even in modern times, have not had such things as air-conditioning, refrigeration, labor-saving technologies, or good medical services (to list just a few of the things that we have long taken for granted in the temperate climes). Also, keep in mind that it is not just the stultifying heat, but the things that come with the heat: parasites and pathogens; malaise; and even chronic hopelessness.

Yet despite these hardships, parts of the tropical world, including CR, have begun (in the past 50 to 100 years) to see more widespread and sustained prosperity, and at least part of the reason may have to do with the development of an eco-tourism industry. But eco-tourism can be a double-edged sword, and to close this article, I will cite an experience toward the end of our ten-day adventure that might help demonstrate the dilemma.

We had finally made it up into the “cloud forests” where temperatures are much more hospitable. Cool, clear streams abound in these parts, and tourists swarm across the terrain, not unlike the leaf-cutter ants we observed in the lower-elevation jungles. Many of the tourists are eco-tourists and have come to CR specifically to seek the myriad creatures of the tropical realm. And while some folks come to see their first poison dart frog, boa-constrictor, or sloth; most come to see the birds. Included among the more famous kinds of birds found in CR are various types of toucans, macaws, forest-falcons, and trogons. Within that last group, the trogons, there is one species in particular that the birding tourist highly coveted — namely, the Resplendent Quetzal (which I called, again, given my heat-baked noggin: the “Resplendent Pretzel”).

There are several species of quetzals in the Neotropics, but in CR, the only quetzal species is the aptly named Resplendent Quetzal; a bird of legendary significance to the tribes of old, including both the Aztecs and Mayans. When we arrived at our final eco-lodge of the trip, high up in the Talamanca Mountains, Jose told us that after lunch he would take us to our best prospect for finding a quetzal. He also mentioned that we would encounter many other birders at the site and that we should be prepared for a bit of pandemonium. Two of our crew, who had visited CR before, said that they would “sit this one out” as they had concerns regarding the “birding ethics” of crowding nesting pairs.

Sure enough, at roughly 2:00 p.m., when our van pulled up and looked for a place to park along the shoulder of a rural road, there were dozens of vehicles and many more people; including not only birders but also general tourists and hard-core photographers — complete with telephoto lenses that looked like they should be firing cannonballs from the gunnels of an old pirate-ship. My heart sank as I walked over to stand behind a crowd that had their binos and cameras trained on a tree cavity where, as I learned from somebody in the crowd, a male quetzal was incubating eggs. Supposedly, it is “well known” that the male and female quetzal trade incubation duties just once every 12 hours (during the shift between night and day). Given this alleged “fact” of a twilight changing-of-the-guard, I wasn’t clear why such a large scrum of people thought it was worthwhile to stand around waiting in the middle of the afternoon. As it turned out, the male must not have read the natural history books pertaining to his own species because, after we had stood there about an hour, the male emerged from the nesting cavity and the female slipped into the hole to relieve him of his incubation duties.

For about five minutes we could study the male quetzal; he, with his crazy crown feathers, reminding one of a sleepy-headed kid who has just been rousted from his slumbers to rush off to school. The male’s head feathers are only the beginning of the bird’s marvelous features, since his body, which is about the size of a feral pigeon, is a mix of shimmering, emerald-green hues in the upper portion, and crimson-colored feathers in the belly area, and then tapers down with a snow-white tail. Additionally, the male sports four rather absurdly long streamers (up to 25 inches!) that trail behind the bird as he engages in florid breeding-season displays as he courts a female.

So yes, the quetzal is very much worth seeing, but by having so many of us lumbering nearby to watch it, are we guilty of affecting something as basic as a species’ breeding success? Or, also significantly, what about the “carbon footprint” that comes from having so many tourists travel great distances to see such a bird? And what about the land that must be cleared, the finite resources that must be used, the social derangements that likely occur to the visited country that beckons scores of foreigners from distant shores? After all, for tourists to see the birds or other critters of a country, it necessitates the construction of airports, hotels, roads, and other advanced infrastructure.

These, and many other questions, are vital issues regarding the sustainability and the fundamental wisdom of basing an economy on eco-tourism. Surely, it is the right of the citizens of any nation that opts to grow its tourism industry to ask and decide on such questions; but these are important questions for ecologists everywhere to ask as well. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I must say that, at the very least, it gives me pause to see such earthly paradises as CR going full-bore into the eco-tourism trade. True, I have benefited from it, wonderfully so, and I can only hope that the Costa Ricans and their native ecosystems benefit as well. But these benefits must not be just for the present, or even for just a few generations. No, they should hopefully endure for at least as long as these ancient forests have already existed — which is long before humankind slithered out from the proverbial primordial ooze.