Trekking with “Tree Jenny,” founder of Costa Rica’s Community Carbon Trees
by Betsy Herbert, Ph.D. Published February 7, 2024 in the Sierra Club Oregon Chapter newslettter
It’s a hot and humid December morning in southern Costa Rica, where my niece Alys and I are sipping coffee at our lodge in the tropical jungle of Perez Zeledon. The howler monkeys have finished their morning serenade while giant Blue Morpho butterflies—with wingspans of 6 - 8 inches—drift iridescent in the sunlight amongst towering trees.
An old, dusty 4WD SUV barrels up the steep dirt driveway, and out bounds Jennifer Leigh Smith, aka “Tree Jenny,” who is about to take us to the Eco-Chontales Community Reforestation Project, where we would see first hand what makes her organization, Community Carbon Trees, such a groundbreaking endeavor. “Greetings, ladies!” she exclaims…”Are you ready for a beautiful hike today?”
We pile into the SUV. The back is loaded with 4” pots of native tree saplings. As Jenny drives us a few miles down the road into the forest, she stops to wave and chat with local farmers (she’s fluent in Spanish and seems to know everyone who lives here). She pulls off to the side of the road where a friendly middle-aged farmer is waiting for her alongside his quadruped. We get out of the SUV and meet Alvaro Cerdas Alfaro, one of the projects’ farmers who supervises a paid planting crew. He smiles while I snap his photo, loads the trees on his quad and drives on.
Alvaro Cerdas Alfaro, a Costa Rican farmer who is committed to reforesting his land with Community Carbon Trees
A little about Tree Jenny (read more about Jenny and her group here.)
Jennifer Leigh Smith is originally from Louisiana, where she was raised on a family farm that practiced sustainable agriculture. After earning an environmental law degree at Louisiana State University, she found that employment opportunities in Louisiana were mostly limited to corporations seeking legal help to maneuver around environmental regulations, rather than to move toward sustainability.
After that realization set in, Jenny moved to Costa Rica in 2000, where farmers had been cutting and burning native tropical forests for decades, turning forests into pasture for cattle grazing (to supply beef for Burger King and Wendy’s). Raising cattle on this degraded land turned out to be unsustainable, since the grazing animals compacted the soil, causing erosion and impacting water sources. The forests that were cleared and burned could no longer contribute moisture as a cloud forest. Biodiversity was suffering, climate change was at work, and drought began to set in. After decades of land abuse, studies revealed that raising cattle was a losing proposition, netting farmers only about $60 per acre.
For the past 20 years, deforestation has continued— by both locals and foreigners—who are converting forests into mono-crops, especially the seemingly endless African palm plantations, lined up in rows to produce palm oil. And, of course, real estate developments. Along the highway, we see billboards advertising Re-Max and Coldwell Banker. One of the signs reads, “We sell paradise.”
Once Jenny moved to Costa Rica, she set about finding ways to help Costa Ricans restore native forests, by empowering people to grow native trees on their own land—to create longterm valued-added forest products, and to provide carbon sequestration and opportunities for community based eco-tourism. These alternative uses could realize a return of $2,460 per acre for the farmers that invested their time and land into restoration.
In 2009, Jenny founded the Community Carbon Trees project. The nonprofit uses a tried and true method to restore native forests. First, seeds of some 100 different species of rainforest trees are collected by hand and sprouted in two nurseries. Then the young saplings are planted on degraded farmland owned by local farmers. Paid local crews maintain the young rainforest trees for for four years, using natural methods to clear competing growth. These Costa Rican farmers are trained in sustainable forestry and become leaders in reforestation.
This hillside in Eco-Chontales Community Reforestation Project is typical of pastures where cattle grazing has degraded the land
As we pull up to the Eco-Chontales Community Reforestation Project, operated by the farmers invested in Community Carbon Trees, we pay our entrance fee, which entitles us to take the trail all the way down to the spectacular Chontales waterfall and to enjoy a prepared lunch at the end of the trail.
We start down the trail, as Tree Jenny points out one of the hillsides degraded by cattle grazing. It looks like corrugated cardboard on a grand scale, where cattle have carved hoof paths into the side of the hill. It’s easy to see why nothing but invasive, exotic grass will grow without help on this land. But once the land has been prepared and planted using proven methods with native trees, the forest grows extremely quickly. After twelve years, the forest is more than 20 feet tall, thanks to growth rates in this tropical climate. As we hike back up the trail, Jenny stops to pull native saplings out of the damp soil of the forest. She will bring these back to the nursery where they will be nurtured and later replanted in another site.
Tree Jenny with saplings she pulled from wet soil at Eco-Chontales Community Reforestation Project; she’ll take the saplings back to one of the community’s plant nurseries where it will later be replanted in another site.
To date, Community Carbon Trees has reforested land on 61 family farms in Costa Rica, planting more than 21,700 trees. Jenny is also collaborating with reforestation communities in Kenya.
I left Tree Jenny feeling inspired and encouraged, something that I haven’t felt for awhile back home in Oregon, which is riddled with state-sanctioned massive clearcuts. I’m inspired because Tree Jenny’s work in Costa Rica demonstrates to the world that serious environmental problems can be successfully addressed when communities are directly involved.