Chris, Builder of the National Parks
Freddy Pacheco León, PhD
When we once read that the «Benemérito de la Patria» (Worthy of the Homeland), Dr. José María Orozco, in the midst of his formidable conservation work, had proposed in 1938, to create «a national park. The first of those that must claim the advancement of the country…. on the mountain of the Poás volcano», as we know it today after being formalized as the first national park in Costa Rica, we truly value his vision, we recognized his effort and we saw him since then, as «Father of the National Parks» in Costa Rica. And we glimpsed it this way because it had anticipated more than 20 years, what would later be forged in Costa Rica, as part of a global trend, which is why we advocated together with other citizens (obviously without success) for it to be baptized with its illustrious name, the Poás Volcano National Park. Distinguished biologist, who also during those years proposed the creation of natural reserves, as well as the conversion of the San Lucas and Chira islands into conservation sites for forest species, and, for what he is best known and admired, for having had the good sense to choose the purple guaria («la Guaria Morada») as the National Flower.
Time passed and with the development of ecology as a science, at a time when environmental destruction on the planet was advancing and concern was already causing international meetings, a series of Costa Rican and foreign scientists specialized in environmental issues emerged, busy with the urgent task to create conservation areas. Some, from positions linked to government institutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), saw the need to advance in the preservation of, at least, some of the natural wealth of the country, whose forests were being devastated, at a rate of deforestation that was unparalleled worldwide. This, among others, was a consequence of a concept of «development» that considered the felling of the forest as an «improvement» that even led to legal incentives for the destruction of «unproductive forests», by those who considered that the country could developed mainly from extensive livestock farming and monocultures, whose agriculture border was interrupted by trees, bushes, wetlands, and everything that hindered, they said, national progress.
Well, in the midst of this circumstantial myopia, there were those who, heirs of Dr. Orozco’s initiatives, and in response to the need to have conservation areas that would confront those who effectively saw destruction as development, took care to preserve areas of the country. In that unequal race, national parks and other conservation areas had to be created! But no one knew how to undertake this grandiose task. Human and financial resources were very limited; what was immense was the incomprehension of this marginal, unproductive task in a country that demanded the fulfillment of other priorities. The MAG was there to promote livestock farming, even if it was extensive, since it was a source of foreign currency that the country needed so much to pay for imported products, to satisfy certain needs. And, of course, to cultivate, hopefully export products, also generators of foreign currency.
In the midst of this predominant situation, which still persists among some people, there were those who spoke of the need to create national parks, without knowing how. From ancient desks, surrounded by agricultural engineers who did not even know the definition of ecology, they talked about it, thought about what to do, but no significant progress was made.
Ideas were flying, but human and material resources were scarce, and the experience was barely incipient.
On the other hand, doctors Joseph Tosi, Leslie Holdridge and Alexander Skutch, most especially, based at the Tropical Scientific Center (CCT), already by the end of the 60s, enjoyed the technical-scientific knowledge necessary to make solid and well-founded areas of Costa Rica, which could form that long-awaited set of conservation areas, in general, and national parks, in particular. The CCT already knew the exceptional life zones and ecosystems that would have to be documented on the ground, but reaching them with teams of officials was almost impossible, starting with the almost non-existent communication routes.
So there was a big but that didn’t seem to be easily resolved. Who would venture to the most inaccessible corners, from the terrain, from the wetlands, from the dry forests, from the caves, from the moors, from the marine reefs, from the archaeological sites, from the great forests, from the beaches with their adjacent plant ecosystems, from the remote beaches where sea turtles nest on both slopes, all of them remote and almost impossible to access, where their biological and socioeconomic characteristics would have to be investigated, notes taken, species identified, confronted natural dangers and hostile people, while very possibly facing hunger and other inconveniences?
We looked around and couldn’t see how to solve this essential, fundamental, irreplaceable task. There were not even rustic roads, and in the places to be studied, there were not even paths that could be followed safely, so the absence of material facilities were undoubtedly almost insurmountable barriers. They would have to undertake dangerous walks, in dry, wooded places and in swamps, to who knew where, without knowing the return paths, in the midst of the incomprehension of dispersed communities that would look at them with great suspicion, since they feared for their lands, almost all of which they had acquired informally, so strangers could be part of the proceedings that would question their presence in them. Who would venture?, they reiterated, and all this without being able to earn a salary consistent with the great task.
It was recognized that in Costa Rica there would be no way to form a qualified human team, willing to accept similar challenges, with the necessary energy and conviction, that would guarantee the dreamed results, while the days, months and years continued to pass.
While pondering this almost impossible task, which was preventing substantial progress in the creation of national parks and other conservation areas, a National Park Service, in charge of volcanoes, was created, practically on paper, in a corner of the MAG, such as Poás, Irazú, Turrialba and other areas near the central valley. Álvaro Ugalde and Mario Boza completed that task and other related ones, without achieving significant progress, because, even within the rulers, contradictions inherent to the lack of knowledge about the importance of preserving natural wealth were expressed. An example of this was the bill published in the official paper» La Gaceta» on December 25, 1966, which intended to rent Coco Island for 40 years, for one colon per year, for a tourist development with German capital, approved with evident enthusiasm, in a legislative committee. The situation, then, was not easy.
While that was happening, there, in a small rural American town in the Mississippi River basin, a boy who as a child had done «mischief» in favor of the protection of wild species, getting into trouble with his teachers, and even with his family, developed as a rebellious teenager, who not only turned the family bathtub into a temporary refuge for turtles, snakes and tadpoles, but also protested indignantly about the frogs that would have to be dissected in biology laboratory classes. Then, at college, he returned to their habitat, the squirrels that his professor had promised not to sacrifice as part of an experiment, often meaningless, like the ones we also saw at the University, without protesting as he bravely did, at the risk of being expelled from the institution. – It was the 1960s, and the demonstrations against the massacre that the United States carried out in distant Vietnam were not indifferent to him either. His conscience prevented him from accepting the burning of the forests with a gelatinous gasoline called napalm, much less the pain and death, of children and adults, women and men, that the B52 bombers and the ground forces inflicted on millions of civilians, by orders received from the White House in Washington. His attitude was so real, so convincing, that they had no choice but to classify him as a «conscientious objector», which freed him from being an accomplice in that criminal massacre, which, paradoxically, had so many physical and psychological consequences for the then young people who They were forced to participate in that unjust war.
Eager to get away from the racist and repressive atmosphere that existed in many cities in the United States in 1968, that boy, almost a teenager, sought the fresh air and nature that he had already known months before and that he longed for, in a Central American country of friendly people, without armed forces for about two decades before, called Costa Rica. And the opportunity presented itself when he enlisted in the Peace Corps, created by the United States Congress in 1961, so that young volunteers could “promote world peace and friendship… under difficult conditions if necessary».
Thus, with that mission, 13 young volunteers, among them the rebel boy with a cause that we talked about, today’s Dr. Christopher Vaughan, arrived one day in 1971 at the El Coco International Airport, “armed” with two cameras, bought with what he had earned, working at a gas station in 1969, a backpack and his daily notebook, but ready to enjoy the greenery of the country he had fallen in love with, and the peace and kindness that prevailed among its people. No longer arriving, and without knowing it, but aware of the great needs that were preventing progress in the creation of national parks that the country required, from the direction of national parks in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, the agronomist Mario Boza, in a piece of paper wrote down what his task would be: LOOK FOR AREAS THAT COULD BE CONVERTED INTO PARKS OR RESERVES. «For which, of course, I had to make a national inventory to find areas with exceptional characteristics or a specific life zone, and then write reports with the preliminary limits, plans, resources, urgency, and cost estimates for the land». A task surely intended for a multidisciplinary team, but it was being posed to him individually, when he was just arriving in the country.
Chris says in his extraordinary book “Costa Rica National Parks: Their Search in the 70s,” “I was horrified, because my task was enormous.”
Mainly as “office” support, he had the scientific team of the Tropical Science Center, Tosi, Holdridge, Skutch, and the naturalist Olof Wessberg, with whom he met (mainly with Tosi), to analyze his notes and indicate immediate tasks, before from leaving on tour and upon returning, after literally having gone hungry, endured unthinkable situations, been kept awake many times, under frequent situations of uncertainty. But the success achieved by Christopher Vaughan (Chris, as his friends and disciples know him) was such that he did not care about the sacrifices and hardships experienced, always without complaining to anyone!, while he walked along tapir trails, because the baqueano was “drunk»; while it was exposed to violent confrontations due to land struggles between farmers and powerful companies such as «Osa Productos Forestales» (OPF), mainly in the Osa peninsula, where the Corcovado National Park would later be established; due to inclement weather in wetland areas with abundant threatening fauna; while eating only canned tuna and some crackers; while was sleeping in a ranch with scorpions everywhere that, to prevent them from climbing onto the trucks, put their legs in cans of water; while the fleas, ants and other insects did not abandon him during the days in which, with great effort, he tried to fulfill his mission well; while he was in the middle of the jungle with unexpected visitors such as felines; while he was forced to eat puma and tapir meat, offered by some good neighbors, to whom he could not say no, so that they would not see him as an enemy; while exhausted and soaked, he had to get into his sleeping bag, overcome by fatigue; while he remained “stranded” in a distant place waiting for a boat, which irregularly made trips to the destinations he hoped to reach; while he had to leave his motorcycle hidden in the undergrowth, in the absence of even a trail that would allow him to continue forward. But what do all these situations matter if he saw, almost daily, how the national parks were being created, that with his invaluable contribution, were being forged!, and that, otherwise, could not have been created.
“At the end of 1985, 19 of the 26 sites I visited between 1971 and 1974 were legally created: nine national parks, one national monument, five biological reserves, one private reserve, one protective zone and two national wildlife refuges,” we he narrates in his book, so it is not in vain that he confesses that those years were “the most exciting and rewarding of my life.”
Well, if those years were like that for Chris, for us Costa Ricans, they were a blessing. Reading the book we wondered what the system of conservation areas in Costa Rica would be like today, which went from just over 33,000 hectares to more than one million three hundred thousand hectares, if that boy with a genuine conservationist spirit had never fell in love with our country. If that young Peace Corps volunteer had rejected the monumental tasks assigned to him, or if a few weeks later, he had said, understandably, ¡I can’t take it anymore!
We have no doubt that Chris’s daily fight, against the chainsaws, axes, machetes, shotguns, and tractors, which, almost reached his heels, would have been lost without his dedication to environmental conservation. The great scientists and attentive administrators who received the very complete reports from him, accompanied by hundreds of invaluable photographs (hundreds of them generously copied in the aforementioned book), surely marveled at the stupendous work that, almost always solitary, this young nature lover carried out and, circumstantially, created our national parks.
For this reason, and more, Costa Ricans, and nature lovers from all over the planet, owe a gigantic debt to Christopher Vaughan, although he neither recognizes it as such, nor is he collecting it.
The only thing he will surely be asking is that the work not be considered finished, because as we saw recently with President Chaves, there is a lot of ignorance around environmental issues, when he sarcastically said that he has a plan for Caño Negro refuge that will indicate «How many properties are in dispute, how much land must be declared a refuge, to compensate the frogs, the snakes and the deer», to add, «Around the 90s someone came up with the idea of oh, how nice, since some desk there in Zapote (presidential office) signs an executive decree…». If the president ever get to read the book published by the «Editorial Tecnológica de Costa Rica», we are sure that his judgment would be fair.
Finally, we believe that Chris’s work will continue, as an individual task for all the inhabitants of this revered land. Only in this way will we pay off, at least a little, the debt we owe to him. Costa Rica would be very different today if that young man had not come to share his desires and dreams for nature. If the “Forger of the National Parks” had not given us, with his selfless dedication, that valuable treasure that honors Costa Rica.
