Ecologist
Daniel
Janzen
wades
into
the
field,
clutching
a
walking
stick
in
one
hand
and
a
fist
full
of
towering
green
blades
of
grass
in
the
other
to
steady
himself.
Winnie
Hallwachs,
also
an
ecologist
and
Janzen’s
wife,
watches
him
closely,
carrying
a
hat
that
she
hands
to
him
once
he
stops
to
explain
our
whereabouts.
Together
with
other
conservationists
who
have
dedicated
decades
of
their
lives
to
this
place,
the
couple
has
brought
forests
back
to
the
Area
de
Conservación
Guanacaste
(ACG).
It’s
an
astonishing
163,000
hectares
of
protected
landscapes
—
an
area
larger
than
the
Hawaiian
island
of
Oahu
—
where
forests
have
reclaimed
farmland
in
Costa
Rica.
The
grass
isn’t
supposed
to
be
here.
Janzen
and
Hallwachs
only
keep
this
small
field
around
as
a
reminder
of
—
and
to
show
visitors
like
me
—
how
far
they’ve
come
since
the
1970s,
when
pastures
and
ranches
still
dominated
much
of
the
landscape.
Across
from
the
field,
on
the
other
side
of
a
two-lane
road
that
winds
through
the
ACG,
is
one
of the
first
stretches
of
young
forest
that
Janzen
and
Hallwachs
started
nursing
back
to
life.
Tree
limbs
stretch
out
over
the
road,
as
if
trying
to
reach
the
remaining
patch
of
grass
left
to
seed
on
the
other
side.
ACG
is
a
success
story,
a
powerful
example
of
what
can
happen
when
humans
help
forests
heal.
It’s
part
of
what’s
made
Costa
Rica
a
destination
for
ecotourism
and
the
first
tropical
country
in
the
world
to
reverse
deforestation.
But
now,
the
couple’s
beloved
forest
faces
a
more
insidious
threat.
Across
the
road,
the
leaves
are
too
perfect.
It’s like
they’re
growing
in
a
greenhouse,
Janzen
says.
There’s
an
eerie
absence
among
the
foliage
—
although
you’d
probably
also
have
to
be
a
regular
in
the
forest
to
notice.
“Every
year
it
seems
worse,”
Hallwachs
says.
“We
should
have
found
bugs.”
There
should
have
been
bees,
wasps,
and
moths
along
our
walk,
she
explains.
And
plenty
of
caterpillar
“houses”
—
curled
up
leaves
the
critters
sew
together
that
eventually
become
shelter
for
other
insects.
“The
houses
were
everywhere,
now
it’s
almost
exciting
when
you
see
one,”
Hallwachs
says.
“This
is
just
weird.”
The
bugs
play
crucial
roles
in
the
forest
—
from
pollinating
plants
to
forming
the
base
of
the
food
chain.
Their
disappearance
is
a
warning.
Climate
change
has
come
to
the
ACG,
marking
a
new,
troubling
chapter
in
the
park’s
comeback
story.
It
also
serves
as
a
lesson
for
conservation
efforts
around
the
globe.
More
than
190
countries
have
recently
committed
to
restoring
30
percent
of
the
world’s
degraded
ecosystems
under
the
Kunming-Montreal
Global
Biodiversity
Framework.
Billionaire
philanthropists
are
pledging
to
support
those
efforts.
What’s
happening
here
in
the
ACG
says
a
lot
about
what
it
takes
to
revive
a
forest
—
especially
in
a
warming
world.
Daniel
Janzen
and
Winnie
Hallwachs
in
a
stretch
of
secondary
forest
in
the
ACG.
Janzen
stands
in
a
field
of
overgrown
grass.
A
view
of
secondary
forest
on
the
left
side
of
a
road
and
field
of
grass
on
the
other
side
of
the
road
in
the
ACG.
“When
I
was
here
earlier,
a
younger
person,
I
could
win
a
case
of
beer
by
betting
on
the
first
day
that
the
rains
would
start,”
Janzen
tells
The
Verge.
Now,
at
85
years
old,
he
says,
“I
would
never
dream
of
betting
anything
because
it
can
start
a
month
early
or
a
month
late.”
The
dry
season
is
about
two
months
longer
than
it
was
when
Janzen
arrived
in
the
1960s.
Climate
change
is
making
seasons
more
unpredictable
and
weather
more
erratic
across
the
planet.
And
that’s
posing
new
risks
to
the
sanctuary
scientists
like
Janzen
and
Hallwachs
have
created
at
ACG.
María
Marta
Chavarría,
ACG’s
field
investigation
program
coordinator,
describes
the
unpredictability
as
“el
alegrón
de
burro.”
Strictly
translated
from
Spanish,
it
means
“donkey
happiness.”
Colloquially,
it
describes
a
fake-out:
short-lived
joy
from
a
false
start.
Chavarría,
who
speaks
with
the
upbeat
tilt
of
an
educator
excited
to
teach,
explains
it
like
this,
“A
big
rain
is
the
trigger.
It’s
time!
The
rainy
season
is
going
to
start!”
Trees
unfurl
new
leaves.
Moths
and
other
insects
that
eat
those
leaves
emerge.
But
now,
the
rains
don’t
always
last.
The
leaves
die
and
fall.
That
has
ripple
effects
across
the
food
chain,
from
the
insects
that
eat
the
leaves
to
birds
that
eat
the
insects.
They
perish
or
move
on.
And
next
season,
there
are
fewer
pollinators
for
the
plants.
“The
big
trigger
in
the
beginning
was
false,”
Chavarría
explains.
“They
started,
but
no
more.”
In
1978,
Janzen
jumped
down
a
ravine
because
he
was
“young
and
carefree
and
just
40
years
old,”
in
his
words.
Slipping
on
wet
rocks,
he
broke
three
ribs.
While
recuperating,
he
spent
a
month
sitting
outside
of
his
home
on
the
edge
of
the
forest
in
the
evenings.
Next
to
a
25-watt
light
bulb
outside,
the
“front
wall
was
literally
plastered
with
adult
moths,”
he
recalls
in
a
2021
paper
he
and
Hallwachs
published
in
the
journal
PNAS.
The
title
was
“To
us
insectometers,
it
is
clear
that
insect
decline
in
our
Costa
Rican
tropics
is
real,
so
let’s
be
kind
to
the
survivors.”
That
observation
in
1978
led
the
couple
to
focus
their
research
on
caterpillars
and
their
parasites.
In
1980,
they
used
light
traps
to
inventory
moth
species
across
the
country,
documenting
at
least
10,000
species.
Since
then,
however,
they’ve
seen
a
steady
decline
in
caterpillars
whose
feces
used
to
blanket
the
forest
floor.
Hanging
a
white
sheet
and
lights
at
the
edge
of
a
cliff
overlooking
a
vast
stretch
of
both
old
and
new-growth
forests,
they
photographed
moths
that
came
to
rest
on
the
sheet
in
1984,
1995,
2007,
and
2019.
The
first
photograph
is
an
impressive
tapestry
of
many
different
winged
critters.
By
2019,
that’s
been
reduced
to
a
mostly
white
sheet
speckled
here
and
there
with
far
fewer
moths.
Instead
of
an
intricate
tapestry
of
wings
and
antennae,
the
sheet
looks
more
like
a
blank
canvas
an
artist
has
only
started
to
splatter
with
a
brush.
Hallwachs
and
Janzen
can
see
the
same
phenomenon
now
standing
in
broad
daylight
in
the
forest
across
from
the
field.
Just
because
forests
have
come
roaring
back
across
the
ACG
doesn’t
mean
the
struggle
to
survive
is
over.
1/3
A
photograph
of
moths
attracted
to
a
light
trap
in
the
ACG
in
May
1984.Image:
Daniel
Janzen
and
Winnie
Hallwachs
How
to
turn
a
ranch
into
a
forest
In
a
roundabout
way,
butterflies
brought
Janzen
to
Guanacaste.
A
ninth-grade
trip
to
collect
butterflies
in
Mexico
sparked
his
love
of
tropical
ecosystems
in
the
1950s.
He
returned
to
Veracruz,
Mexico,
as
a
PhD
student
a
decade
later,
collecting
insects
for
a
research
project.
Guanacaste
is
biologically
similar
to
Veracruz,
Janzen
says
—
filled
with
tropical
dry
forests.
The
parallels
brought
him
to
Costa
Rica
in
1963
to
research
interactions
between
plants
and
animals.
Compared
to
rainforests
that
have
cafes
and
even
an
e-commerce
giant
named
after
them,
dry
forests
arguably
aren’t
in
the
spotlight
so
much.
And
yet
they’re
disappearing
faster
across
Latin
America
than
their
rainier
counterparts.
Dry
forests
are
less
humid
and
a
little
more
hospitable
to
people
and
agriculture,
so
people
came
to
raze
them.
In
Costa
Rica,
which
exported
as
much
as
60
percent
of
its
beef
to
Burger
King
at
one
point,
ranches
and
pastures
replaced
forests.
Grasses,
good
for
cows,
grew
in
their
place.
Between
1940
and
1990,
forest
cover
in
Costa
Rica
shrank
from
75
to
just
29
percent.
Another
American
conservationist,
Kenton
Miller,
first
envisioned
a
national
park
in
Guanacaste
in
1966.
Commissioned
by
the
Costa
Rican
government
to
plan
a
national
monument
to
one
of
the
country’s
oldest
ranches
in
the
area,
he
instead
made
the
case
for
preserving
a
stretch
of
Guanacaste’s
remaining,
albeit
damaged,
dry
forest.
The
aim
was
to
protect
10,400
hectares
of
land
that’s
now
the
Parque
Nacional
Santa
Rosa.
And
Miller
wanted
to
do
more.
Park
staff
still
quote
him
saying
his
“dream
was
the
creation
of
a
national
park
that
would
stretch
from
the
sea
to
the
peaks
of
mountains
and
volcanoes.”
Janzen
was
ambling
around
the
area
around
the
same
time,
albeit
more
focused
on
research
than
conservation.
“I
studied
it,
they
saved
it,”
he
wrote
in
2000.
Hallwachs
joined
him
as
a
volunteer
research
assistant
in
1978,
and
the
two
married
soon
after.
In
Santa
Rosa,
Hallwachs
studied
agoutis,
rodents
that
can
get
to
be
about
as
big
as
domestic
cats.
She
devised
an
ingenious
way
to
study
how
the
animals
disperse
seeds
throughout
the
forest,
Janzen
boasts
proudly,
by
placing
a
bobbin
of
thread
inside
the
thick-skinned
fruit
of
the
guapinol
tree
that
agoutis
bury
to
eat
later.
Switch
to
renewable
energy.
Stop
deforestation.
Restore
ecosystems.
They’re
lofty
goals
that
more
and
more
corporations
and
governments
are
setting
for
themselves.
If
it
seems
too
ambitious,
just
look
to
Costa
Rica.
It’s
the
first
tropical
country
to
have
reversed
deforestation,
and
it
generates
nearly
100
percent
of
its
electricity
from
renewable
sources
of
energy.
There’s
a
lot
to
learn
from
those
successes
and
even
more
to
gain
from
challenges
the
country
now
has
to
tackle.
Seasons
are
increasingly
unpredictable.
Could
climate
change
upend
past
victories?
Meanwhile,
Indigenous
leaders
face
violence
from
people
trying
to
stop
their
campaigns
to
reclaim
and
reforest
Indigenous
territories.
Can
the
country
undo
a
history
of
land
grabbing?
The
Verge
explored
those
questions
on
the
ground
in
Costa
Rica,
with
support
from
the
International
Center
for
Journalists
and
local
media
organization
Punto
y
Aparte,
and
discovered
hard-learned
lessons
that
cross
borders.
The
nature
of
their
work
started
to
change
in
1985
after
a
trip
to
study
Australia’s
dry
forests.
There,
they
saw
how
ranchers’
fires
had
caused
so
much
devastation
over
the
years
that
even
some
biologists
had
no
idea
that
what
they
saw
as
grass
plains
were
really
overgrown
pastures
that
used
to
be
forest.
They
realized
that
fires
could
do
the
same
in
Guanacaste,
as
long
as
the
grass
remained.
The
problem
is
sometimes
called
the
human-grass-fire
cycle:
when
invasive
grasses,
often
introduced
through
agriculture,
crowd
out
forests
and
then
dry
out
and
become
fuel,
making
the
landscape
more
fire-prone.
It’s
a
threat
in
a
lot
of
places
outside
of
Costa
Rica,
contributing
to
the
devastating
fire
that
tore
through
Maui
last
year.
In
Guanacaste,
ranchers
had
wielded
fire
since
the
1600s
to
keep
the
forest
at
bay,
preventing
it
from
creeping
back
into
pastures.
If
Santa
Rosa
was
to
survive,
fires
and
invasive
grasses
would
have
to
go.
The
national
park
would
also
need
to
grow
with
the
support
of
the
local
community.
The
couple
drafted
a
plan
to
expand
Santa
Rosa
into
a
larger
conservation
area,
enlisting
residents’
help
in
stamping
out
fires
and
even
hiring
former
ranch
hands
to
form
a
firefighting
crew.
Over
30
years,
the
initiative
to
create
ACG
raised
enough
money
to
buy
more
than
350
surrounding
farms
and
ranches.
Serendipitously,
by
the
1990s,
declining
international
beef
prices
and
a
landmark
forest
law
that
outlawed
deforestation
and
paid
people
to
protect
natural
resources
also
served
to
transform
the
landscape
across
Costa
Rica.
It’s
a
victory
that,
lately,
has
been
in
the
shadow
of
splashy
commitments
by
influencers,
billionaires,
and
policymakers
to
plant
a
ton
of
trees.
It’s
become
a
popular
way
for
companies
and
consumers
to
try
to
offset
some
of
their
environmental
footprint.
“We
see
all
the
hype
coming
from
people
who
are
going
to
plant
a
billion
trees
and
nobody
gives
us
any
credit,”
Janzen
laments.
What’s
worse,
a
lot
of
those
corporate
tree-planting
campaigns
are
fundamentally
flawed.
The
first
seeds
blew
in
with
the
wind
“A
lot
of
the
reforestation
projects
are
kind
of
assuming
that
trees
are
mechanical
objects,”
Hallwachs
says.
But
they
don’t
stand
alone,
not
in
a
healthy
forest.
Merely
plant
rows
of
trees,
and
the
result
is
a
tree
plantation
—
not
a
forest. Bringing
back
a
forest
is
a
much
different
endeavor.
It’s
more
about
restoring
relationships
—
reconnecting
remaining
forests
with
land
that’s
been
cleared
and
nurturing
new
kinds
of
connections
between
people
and
the
land.
In
ACG’s
dry
forest,
they
didn’t
have
to
plant
trees
by
hand.
By
getting
rid
of
the
grass
and
stopping
the
fires,
they
cleared
the
way
for
the
forest’s
return.
The
first
seeds
blew
in
with
the
wind.
Hallwachs
and
Janzen
recognize
them
like
old
friends
— stopping
next
to
a
Dalbergia
tree
that
was
one
of
the
first
to
grow
where
they
stomped
out
the
fires.
Its
seeds
are
light
and
flat,
allowing
them
to
float
on
a
breeze.
When
those
trees
start
to
grow,
they
attract
animals
in
search
of
food
or
shelter.
Janzen
measures
each
animal
up
by
how
many
seeds
they
can
hold
and
then
spit
or
defecate
onto
the
forest
floor.
“When
you
see
a
bird
fly
by,
what
you’re
seeing
is
a
tablespoon
full
of
seeds,”
he
says.
“Every
deer
you
see
is
a
liter
of
seeds.”
Janzen
holds
a
fruit
from
the
guapinol
tree.
Resin
seeps
out
of
the
pod,
which
becomes
amber
over
time.
Now,
ACG
is
estimated
to
hold
as
many
as
235,000
different
terrestrial
species
—
representing
around
2.6
percent
of
global
biodiversity.
For
comparison,
Costa
Rica
as
a
whole
holds
roughly
4
percent
of
the
world’s
biodiversity,
home
to
more
species
than
the
US
and
Canada
combined.
The
ACG
is
now
a
world
heritage
site
spanning
not
just
dry
forest
but
nearby
rainforest,
cloud
forest,
and
marine
ecosystems.
The
forest
across
the
field
is
considered
“secondary.”
In
other
words,
it’s
not
the
original
forest;
it’s
one
that’s
grown
back
after
being
cleared.
Today,
more
than
75
percent
of
the
country
is
blanketed
by
forest,
and
more
than
half
of
that
canopy
is
young
secondary
forest.
It
plays
a
critical
role
in
protecting
biodiversity,
giving
threatened
species
a
home
and
slowing
climate
change
by
absorbing
carbon
dioxide
from
the
atmosphere.
It’s
also
where
the
couple
has
built
a
humble
home
nestled
under
a
secondary
canopy.
They
spend
three
months
at
a
time
here,
bouncing
back
and
forth
between
Guanacaste
and
Philadelphia,
where
Janzen
is
a
professor
of
biology
emeritus
and
Hallwachs
is
a
research
biologist
at
the
University
of
Pennsylvania.
The
front
porch
is
a
couple
of
plastic
lawn
chairs
on
the
forest
floor,
shaded
by
corrugated
metal.
A
web
of
clotheslines
hangs
from
wooden
rafters
inside,
clothespins
securing
bags
of
plants
and
other
specimens
they’ve
collected
over
the
years.
Somewhere
among
the
glass
jars
and
more
plastic
bags
on
Janzen’s
desk,
he
fishes
out
a
wooden
bobbin
like
those
that
his
wife
used
to
track
agoutis’
movements
by
following
threads
along
the
forest
floor.
Now,
there’s
an
agouti
foraging
outside
the
front
door
the
couple
keeps
open
to
the
forest.
“There
was
a
time
when
we
thought
[agoutis]
would
never
show
up
at
our
house
because
our
house
was
in
the
pasture.
It
was
so
far
away
from
all
of
this,”
Janzen
recalls.
“Today,
they’re
there
every
morning.”
“The
living
dead”
A
short
drive
from
Janzen
and
Hallwachs’
home,
along
a
stretch
of
the
winding
paved
road
through
the
ACG,
the
tree
canopy
seems
to
close
in
overhead.
With
the
windows
rolled
down,
you
can
smell
the
shift
to
musty,
moist
earth.
Stop
and
step
outside,
and
the
forest
floor
is
darker,
spongier.
The
thick
foliage
above
filters
out
more
sunlight;
more
of
those
leaves
have
accumulated
and
decayed
on
the
ground
for
centuries
without
burning.
In
other
parts
of
the
park,
Janzen
can
bring
his
walking
stick
down
with
a
thud,
hitting
harder,
more
compact
soil.
Here,
his
walking
stick
rustles
through
layers
of
leaf
litter.
“You’re
standing
in
the
only
piece
of
original
dry
forest
between
Brownsville,
Texas,
and
the
Panama
Canal
[along]
a
paved
road,”
Janzen
says.
Janzen
and
Hallwachs
in
a
stretch
of
original
dry
forest
in
the
ACG.
This
22-hectare
sprawl,
just
half
as
big
as
the
Mall
of
America,
is
a
gem
in
the
ACG.
It’s
the
source
of
seeds
that
blew
into
old
pastures.
In
an
ideal
world
—
with
several
more
centuries
and
a
stable
climate
—
primary
forests
like
this
might
have
grown
to
infiltrate
the
secondary
forests
it
now
has
as
neighbors.
In
other
words,
more
of
the
ACG
might
look
and
feel
like
this
original
forest.
“The
intent
was
always
that.
Then
comes
climate
change,”
Hallwachs
says.
While
it’s
hotter
and
drier
in
this
part
of
the
world
because
of
climate
change,
it’s
noticeably
cooler
in
the
original
forest
than
in
areas
nearby
that
have
been
razed.
It’s
another
benefit
of
the
old
evergreen
trees
towering
overhead.
Janzen
leads
us
to
a
300-year-old
tree.
The
common
name
for
it,
he
explains,
is
chicle
—
the
Spanish
word
for
chewing
gum,
which
can
be
made
from
the
white
latex
under
its
bark.
We
visit
another
ancient
tree,
the
guapinol.
Amber
jewelry
is
made
from
its
fossil
resin.
Its
seeds
are
the
same
ones
the
agouti
bury
across
the
forest.
“And
that’s
how
the
forest
moves,”
Janzen
says.
But
the
last
time
the
tree
bore
fruit
was
about
25
years
ago.
For
a
tree
that
only
flowers
every
quarter-century,
everything
needs
to
be
just
right
for
it
to
successfully
reproduce
—
enough
water
and
nutrients
and
plenty
of
pollinators
(in
the
guapinol’s
case,
bats).
If
that
doesn’t
happen,
you
could
lose
the
next
generation.
Here
in
the
ACG,
the
guapinol
is
one
of
what
Hallwachs
and
Janzen
call
“the
living
dead.”
“The
climate
for
their
successful
reproduction
has
already
moved
on,”
Hallwachs
says.
“So
what
will
be
here
in
25
years?
We
are
very
much
hoping
there
will
be
forest
in
25,
50
years.
But
there
will
be
some
of
these
classic
species
that
won’t
be
able
to
make
it.”
This
is
what
gives
me
hope
The
forest
is
changing
faster
than
Janzen,
Hallwachs,
and
other
researchers
can
document.
There’s
not
much
to
do
about
it
except
to
stop
climate
change
and
deforestation,
they
say,
and
keep
on
with
their
work
of
restoring
the
landscape.
The
ACG’s
other
ecosystems
have
suffered
from
climate
change,
too
—
from
coral
reefs
losing
their
color
in
the
heat
to
cloud
forests
losing
their
clouds.
“At
this
point
in
time
and
budgets,
ACG
does
not
require
more
classical
academic
scientific
study
of
climate
change
impacts,”
they
wrote
in
their
2021
PNAS
article.
“Confronted
with
a
metaphorical
burning
house
today
in
the
tropics,
the
critical
priority
is
the
complex
of
fire
departments,
fire
codes,
fire
alarms,
fire
exits,
emergency
rooms
for
burn
victims,
and
rules
and
views
that
prohibit
candles
in
Christmas
trees,
rather
than
for
more
and
fancier
thermometers.”
María
Marta
Chavarría,
ACG’s
field
investigation
program
coordinator,
is
restoring
a
mangrove
forest
on
a
former
salt
flat.
Scrolling
through
photos
of
ACG’s
coral
reef
bleaching
last
year,
Chavarría
tells
The
Verge,
“This
is
really
hard
for
me
being
here,
documenting
this.
Sometimes
I
want
to
cry.”
The
water
was
so
hot
it
felt
like
jumping
into
soup.
Under
stress,
corals
expel
the
algae
that
give
them
their
color
and
energy.
If
the
bleaching
lasts
too
long,
the
corals
could
die.
She’s
tried
to
get
funding
to
restore
the
reef
and
figure
out
which
corals
could
be
more
resilient
to
climate
change
but
hasn’t
had
luck
yet,
she
says.
Still,
she
believes
they
can
be
saved.
“This
is
what
gives
me
hope,”
she
says,
pointing
to
a
colony
of
coral
that
didn’t
bleach.
It’s
still
pink.
This
is
what
conservationists
should
pay
attention
to,
she
says,
her
voice
still
upbeat.
When
things
get
rough,
Chavarría
heads
to
a
lookout
point
where
she
can
see
the
hectares
of
forest
below
that
she’s
helped
to
revive.
It
reminds
her
of
what’s
possible.
There
is
still
hope
and
growth
in
Guanacaste.
The
ACG
team’s
restoration
efforts
are
expanding
outside
of
its
official
borders.
Working
with
local
women
on
a
former
salt
flat,
Chavarría
is
restoring
a
coastal
mangrove
forest,
which
has
proven
to
be
even
more
effective
at
storing
carbon
dioxide
than
other
kinds
of
forests
of
the
same
size,
keeping
the
greenhouse
gas
from
further
heating
the
planet.
Thick
mangrove
roots
also
grip
the
earth
so
tightly
that
they
can
protect
coastlines
from
rising
seas
and
erosion.
The
project
is
also
expected
to
improve
fishing
prospects
for
residents
who
depend
on
it
for
food
and
livelihood.
That
kind
of
community
buy-in
to
the
forests’
survival
has
been
one
of
the
pillars
of
ACG
since
its
inception.
Officially,
they
call
it
biodesarrollo,
or
biodevelopment.
In
practice,
it’s
relationship-building.
Chavarría
started
a
program
for
kids
in
a
local
fishing
town,
taking
them
snorkeling
to
learn
more
about
the
ocean
ecosystem.
She
remembers
one
of
the
very
first
kids
in
the
program
jumping
out
of
the
water,
screaming,
“María,
they
are
colorful!”
Before
that
moment,
she
says,
“These
kids
know
the
fish
just
fried
in
the
pan,
never
alive
in
the
reef.”
The
program
got
mothers
in
town
curious
and,
now,
more
involved
in
projects
like
restoring
the
mangrove
forest.
It’s
tough
work,
planting
seedlings
along
newly
dug
canals
while
your
boots
sink
into
brackish
mud.
But
they
won’t
have
to
plant
too
many
trees
—
just
enough
to
stabilize
water
canals
that
bring
back
the
natural
ebb
and
flow
of
the
tide
to
this
former
salt
flat.
Each
tide
washes
away
layers
of
salt,
picks
up
seedlings
from
surviving
mangrove
trees
nearby,
and
deposits
them
here
to
grow.
Photography
by
Justine
Calma
/
The
Verge
The International
Center
for
Journalists supported
this
reporting,
and Punto
y
Aparte contributed
to
the
report.
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