In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs convinced a Costa Rican orange juice maker to to dump their waste peels in a clear-cut abandoned pasture that was in a national park. Twenty years later, the enriched soil nourishes tropical forest again, according to a new report.
Via ZME:
Princeton ecology grad student Timothy Treuer said after visiting the location: "It was so completely overgrown with trees and vines that I couldn't even see the 7-foot-long sign with bright yellow lettering marking the site that was only a few feet from the road." Treuer's colleague Jonathan Choi added, "The site was more impressive in person than I could've imagined. While I would walk over exposed rock and dead grass in the nearby fields, I'd have to climb through undergrowth and cut paths through walls of vines in the orange peel site itself."
A win-win for everyone!
• Low-cost agricultural waste accelerates tropical forest regeneration (Restoration Ecology via ZME)
