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Something else happens to Sánchez during the campaign: His reserved nature emerges as an asset. Unfailingly polite and kind, he can approach anyone, and does. When Sánchez happens one day upon a farm truck overturned in a ditch, he spends an hour helping pick up scattered crates of lettuce and consoling the driver. Around such a person, tough, wary old farmers let down their guard. Perhaps looking for complements to his own personality, Sánchez enlisted the most charismatic teenagers from his catechism class to help with the campaign. In return, the teens learn computer skills and receive training they could apply toward careers as ecotour guides. “It can be hard to lead a group of teens,” Sánchez says. “They’re not very disciplined.” Yet they follow him without question. One overcast day, Sánchez leads his team to the campground where the festival will be held. The teens paint labels for the trees, sharing cans of red and black paint, filling in the block letters with both Spanish and Latin. Puño de Tigre—Cyathea Arborea. There’s a muffled boom overhead, and rain starts to come down, hard and fast. The teens follow Sánchez’s lead and huddle under the eaves of a toolshed to continue painting. No one complains. For the next two hours, they work. Sánchez laughs softly at the teens’ jokes, while the water splashes off the roof overhead, gradually soaking them. “Químicos,” Sánchez says, scrunching his nose. It is a sunny day, and he’s hiking up a pitted road flanked by farmland when a pocket of sulphurous air wafts by. Chemical fertilizers or pesticides—or both—were used on this land. Up the hill, three men work coffee-colored earth with sharpened hoes. José Abdiel, 43, in a straw hat (the other two are in the requisite baseball caps), waves down. Abdiel practices the sustainable farming techniques that FUNDICCEP, the Conservancy and Rare advocate. He uses organic fertilizers that help restore nutrients to the soil and natural pesticides, such as crushed chili peppers mixed with water. He plants live barriers of vetiver, a grass with a thick root system, in steppe fashion to keep soil from washing off. When it comes to convincing the farmers of Cerro Punta that there are safer, and effective, alternatives out there, puppet shows won’t do. Sánchez needs to show them examples like Abdiel’s farm. Abdiel is eager to talk about his practices and draws diagrams in the ground with a stubby finger the size and color of a blunt cigar. In mid-drawing he pushes an armored insect through the dirt, a chinche ediondo, which eats the larvae of pest insects that feed on the crops. Chemical pesticides would have killed this small helper, he says. “In the past we used a mountain of products on our crops,” Abdiel says. “Many farmers are trying to use less now. They know that the chemicals contaminate the land and water. But the problem is they are very effective.” Abdiel, who is preparing his fields for planting potatoes in two weeks, admits that sustainable farming means more work initially. When crop rows are cultivated in vertical lines up and down the hillsides, it allows tractors to drive up one row and down the next. But because he plants his rows across the hillside to minimize erosion, tractors can’t be used. They would tip over trying to drive across the steeply angled terrain. “You need a lot more men to help with the harvest,” Abdiel says. “And a lot more money.” Reforming agriculture in Cerro Punta means Sánchez must convince hardworking farmers that initial increases in cost and labor will even out, even decline, over time. Among the arguments he uses: At $2 per bag, the cost of organic fertilizer is about a fifth the cost of synthetic fertilizer; the soil produces more quickly after a crop has been harvested; and the product is healthier, which can be a good selling point. (Part of FUNDICCEP’s work is to impress upon the big grocery chains the desirability of organic produce.) Abdiel says that many farmers are beginning to incorporate sustainable practices into their farming. One might use organic fertilizer; another, live barriers. “Change is slow,” he says. “But the campaign is helping.” The campaign is helping, at least according to the numbers. In late May, Sánchez starts collecting survey data to measure the effectiveness of his Rare Pride campaign. The initial figures show promise: Fifty-two percent of the respondents say they are aware of the benefits of living near a protected area, up from just 15 percent at the beginning of the campaign; 85 percent say they are ready to petition the government for better controls of agricultural chemicals, up from 61 percent at the beginning. But other indicators, such as whether respondents know of alternatives to agricultural chemicals, remain flat at around 30 percent. In July, Sánchez returns to the Rare center in Guadalajara to process the numbers with staff. Rare officials are pleased. “The campaign was effective,” Megan Hill pronounces. On that March day at Abdiel’s farm, however, the end of the campaign is still far enough away that the final result is anything but certain. Sánchez leaves Abdiel in the field and continues up the hill. Ostensibly he’s going to look at lettuce seedlings being grown in organic fertilizer, but he spends most of his time surveying the view from the top of the hill. Below him stretch fields of dark earth; above him stand thick patches of forest. Sánchez says as soon as the campaign is over, he would like to get back into the mountains to remind himself what all the fuss is about. The sun shines brightly amid a few white clouds. “Listen,” he says, suddenly alert. “Do you hear that? It’s the song of a quetzal.” The sound is faint and comes from a stand of trees far away. But for now, it is loud enough to fuel his resolve. Nature picture credits: All Photos © HalBrindley.com |
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