By Victoria Torley

Well, it's time for a couple of yearly announcements. The first one won't hurt, I promise.

ICE gives away trees every year! The reforestation project began in 1960 and has distributed 19,000,000 seedlings since its inception. This year, the project expects to distribute about 700,000 trees.

Why?

We have a lot of driving rain in Costa Rica, but the branches and leaves of our trees absorb some of the impact, which helps prevent erosion while the roots keep the soil from being dislodged. This is especially important around rivers and in watershed areas.

A little history lesson. When the conquistadores arrived in Costa Rica, it was much more heavily forested than it is today, as the natives had no grazing animals. Some of the early imports to the country included cattle, sheep, and goats, all of which required open land for foraging. Trees were cut to provide that open land and as a source of timber for buildings. Costa Rica lost a large part of its native forests in the process.

A natural consequence of that deforestation was erosion, but another was the near extinction of woods like Cocobolo (rosewood), prized for its natural beauty. Other trees were also pushed to the edge, including Guanacaste, Cristobal, Nazareno, and Ronron. In the area around Lake Arenal, we get our trees in Tronadora, but trees are also available in Cachí in Cartago and La Garita in Alajuela.