The Green Mountain: Costa Rica's Dying Cloud Forest
- Francis Buchanan
- Jun 27, 2020
- 6 min read
Central America’s gringo trail has been hewn and fashioned by a series of age-old clichés. Think sun-drenched beaches, Tolkienesque volcanoes, and the ruins of lost civilisations.
But in Costa Rica, there is a paradise that truly stands out from the rest. A place that is completely unique. The small community of Monteverde, found high up in the Cordillera de Tilarán mountain range, is one of the country’s major ecotourism sites. Home to beguiling cloud forests, dazzling waterfalls, frog sanctuaries, and butterfly gardens, Monteverde is eagerly sought out by many who visit Costa Rica.
After sweating out all of the bottled water to exist in Nicaragua and then recovering from a few days in the spring-breaker utopia of Tamarindo, I had no idea what was in store for me as we ascended into the mountains towards Monteverde. The drive itself was jaw-dropping. With views all the way back to the Colorado Gulf and Chira Island, the rolling hills the bus winds around (at disconcerting speeds) kind of resembles a mix of Hobbiton and the Scottish Highlands. (Man, two Lord of the Rings references in three paragraphs, get it together, Francis.)
The second thing that becomes apparent is the sharp drop in temperature of around 10-15 degrees. Seriously, I can’t stress how weird it is to go from the sun-caked sands of Tamarindo to the altitudes of Monteverde over the course of one afternoon. At around 1,400 metres above sea level, the moment we stepped off the bus we knew we’d be needing the warm fleeces crammed right at the bottom of our rucksacks.
The final, and most fantastic thing, that you notice when you arrive in Monteverde, is just how close you are to the clouds, which are, after all, what makes the area so popular among international tourists. In typical, unassuming modesty, the clouds descend down from the forested slopes above and glide overhead, and they’re so close it often feels like you can just reach up and touch them.
The towns of Monteverde and Santa Elena are equally unassuming. Like everywhere else in Central America, Costa Rica is a country where individual regions are really distinguished by their own distinctive culture and way of life. The people of the Central Highlands of Puntarenas Province live very different lives to those who dwell in the capital San Jose or on the Pacific and Caribbean seaboards. The heat is much less of a problem first and foremost, and rainfall is much more frequent. Generally speaking, it’s a remarkable part of the country where people are more at odds (and harmony) with the natural world, where children play football on pitches with access to some of the best vistas imaginable, and where traffic on the roads usually refers to the families of white-nosed coatis.
We checked in at the Hotel El Sueno in the centre of Santa Elena and I was surprised to find that I’d booked a few nights in what looked more like an alpine ski-lodge than any other form of accommodation we’d seen on the trail. The place had a good energy about it and offered a complimentary breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, and fruit. That’s a win like no other in my books.
But it wasn’t long before we decided to venture up to the region’s most popular attraction – the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.
“The Jewel in the Crown of Cloud Forest Reserves”
National Geographic once stated that Monteverde’s cloud forest was “the jewel in the crown of cloud forest reserves”, and it’s very easy to see why. An area spanning over 35,000 acres, and home to around 2,500 different species of plants and animals, the Monteverde Cloud Forest is a nature lover’s rapturous wonderland.
Weaving through the clusters of eagle-eyed birdwatchers, fresh from the Steve Irwin apparel store, (to be fair there are supposed to be 400 different species of bird) we took the forest’s southern path to the Continental Divide, the spindly, mountainous backbone of the Americas. The Continental Divide of the Americas separates the watershed that drains into those river systems that drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Simply put, eastern rainfall goes to the Caribbean Sea and western rainfall goes to the Pacific.
Trekking around that forest was like venturing back in time to a land before time. It’s not every day you get to feel like a primal wanderer in pristine, virgin wilderness. Sometimes, blanketed by characteristic low hanging cloud, it felt like I was seeing nothing at all, but the moment the cloud lifts for just a short moment, the views available to me were unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Far to the west, the Nicoya Peninsula stretched out towards the horizon, distant and alien. Far closer, to the east, was the neighbouring Children’s Eternal Rainforest, a huge expanse of jungle that coated both valleys and high, rolling summits. A moment later and the clouds would descend once again, obscuring everything from view once again.
Although existing throughout the epochs in its silent majesty, the cloud forest, as we know it, was only seized upon by the Western imagination in the mid 20th century. The early stages of the project were initiated by a group of Alabama-born Quakers from 11 different families who sought to live as farmers in the Central Highlands of Costa Rica. Seeking to escape the Korean War draft, they were attracted to Costa Rica because of the country’s moralistic ethos and lack of a national army. So, purchasing the land, the Quaker community settled and named the area Monteverde – The Green Mountain.
From the 1960s onwards, the cloud forest began to catch the attention of scientists from all over the globe who were captivated and engrossed by the diverse array of flora and fauna there. The latter decades of the 20th century saw consistent calls for the need to preserve the cloud forest for biological research and education purposes, and in 1973, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve was officially founded. By the early 1990s, the site was welcoming over 40,000 visitors every year.
While annual statistics continue to show a rise in tourists visiting the cloud forest, it is believed that the forest itself is set to become one of the many casualties of climate change.
Costa Rica’s Cloudless Cloud Forest
The clouds of Monteverde’s Cloud Forest are disappearing. Recent studies have shown that increasing temperatures have caused clouds in the mountain forest to rise.
“Richard LaVal’s study used data since the 1970s and found that the average temperature in Monteverde had jumped nearly 3 degrees Celsius in just a ten-year period, from 1990 to 2000. While temperatures have decreased in recent years, LaVal and researchers believe that the data indicates a long-term trend of increasing temperatures in the region.”
While the consensus is that we could still be many years away from a cloudless cloud forest in Monteverde, the diagnosis remains that the habitat is sadly doomed, and one day, it will cease to be such a place of natural beauty, mystery, and wonder.
Increasing temperatures are also having a profound effect on the local flora and fauna. “Their data shows that species in the lowland, which are adapted to warmer temperatures, are moving into highland ecosystems where they are not traditionally found.”
‘“The bad thing about living on top of the mountain is that there’s nowhere to go,” biologist Dan Janzen told Al Jazeera, referring to the highland species that now must compete with lowland species that have moved higher to escape the increasing temperature. “You’ve created death valley for what lived above [the lowlands].”’
This is the region’s damning reality, and while it is a specular, stunning, and fascinating place to visit, there’s also a lingering sadness in the knowledge that it’s not to last.
And there is no amount of funding, charity, or donation that will fix this problem, postpone it or make it go away. The issue is bound to the far larger problem of how we treat, and have treated, the natural world around us.
As it stands, Monteverde is still a stunning part of Central America’s gringo trail and well worth visiting if you’re ever in that part of the world.
And, while the results of climate change cannot be so easily reversed, there are a ton of projects to put your money behind in Costa Rica. Both the Children’s Eternal Rainforest and the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve are both very happy to accept public donations in the name of continued efforts to conserve the local flora and fauna.
Finally, speaking from experience, do not eat the seafood rice at The Treehouse. Thank me later. Poop joke to end on. Tell me where it says that writing has to be classy.
Obviously, like everywhere else on planet Earth, Santa Elena and the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve have been hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic. I haven’t written about it, because I’m sick to bastard death of it, but if anyone’s interested, here’s a link to a good article.
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