nmedina’s Articles at WOW Fellowship Blog

Moving Cl-Osa to the US and Brandeis

The most beautiful Pacific sunset I've ever seen! From Osa's Conservation Center. — The most beautiful Pacific sunset I’ve ever seen! From Osa’s Conservation Center.

As I reflect on my internship with Osa Conservation, I really appreciate so much the skills I learned throughout the summer. I measured and gathered data from a total of about 1,250 trees with a great field team in about the span of 1 month, which was intense but very satisfactory at the end. I learned how the entire research process works from start to finish: project idea; design; budget; preparation; daily fieldwork; team management; data entry, compilation, and analysis; and preparation and technique standardization for replacement researchers. I also learned more about the levels of taxonomic classifications for plants, as well as specific Latin names from the local set of tropical trees. I learned about the collaboration that goes on among various NGOs with similar interests to pursue projects that could not otherwise get done with the limited resources from a single NGO, which is very important for NGO development. Given that Osa Conservation has former workers from Conservation International, it has developed this successful model of NGO growth, development, and empowerment.

Being back on campus, I hope to build off of this experience by continuing my focused pursuit of as many environmental-science concepts as I can learn while at Brandeis, as well as wherever I decide to go after graduation. My time abroad has motivated me to make the effort to promote my Environmental Studies minor into a major; as a senior it may not be possible at this point but I will certainly do everything I can to make it so! I will also continue to promote environmentalism alongside the student community on campus through Students for Environmental Action. After Brandeis, I hope to continue studying similar interests like plant ecology and forestry in graduate school, perhaps alongside a professor at Lehigh whom I met at the research station where I was staying.

While the data collection for this project is part of a multi-year effort, in the future I do hope to take on the many other challenges that climate change issues currently pose to the natural world. I feel that I have yet to learn about the multitude of issues that deal specifically with climate change, but as of now I know that I am interested in detailing the potential of sustainable ways of life—a very important way being organic agriculture—to mitigate climate change. Essentially, my most fundamental goal in my work life is to best prove (using science, I believe) how putting all of our ideas about sustainability into practice can actually give the results that today’s, future, and older generations (often filled with skeptics) need to start pushing for and adopting a new ideal of societal development and advancement. I am at the stage where I want to learn about how the most successful existing models of sustainability work (which seem rare and found all over the world and require travel). Later I aim to reach a stage where I alone have the capacity and know-how to establish these models in places that need them. The real beauty about practical sustainability models is that most of the world needs them—they truly transcend boundaries of old divisions like “first” and “third” worlds.

Advice that I would give to a student interested in working with Osa Conservation: make sure you know what you want from the internship and why you are going to Osa Conservation’s wildlife refuge. I say this in a down-to-earth way because the organization does not have many personnel, which means that everyone will always be busy because there is so much more to do than there are workers. This means that while you will have a supervisor and/or mentors, they will not be with you for much of the day. So, set your schedule, be your own boss, take advantage of opportunities as they come, and you should get everything you want from your experience and more!

Advice that I would give to a student interested in working in conservation biology and related fields: you are striving to set world trends of development. World sustainability systems are not yet entirely structurally stable, so it may be hard to make a living, especially financially. So, be prepared to let your life and work be driven by passion and love! Also be sure to make the most of funding, grant, and scholarship opportunities.

Thank you to everyone who helped me make this experience a reality!

Nicholas Medina ’14

Osa's biological research station — Osa’s biological research station

A rare sight: a Green marine turtle in the process of laying her eggs! Seen during a night patrol.

How Times (and Scarlet Macaws, Hummingbirds, and Toucans) Fly By at UTC/GMT -6 hours!

Fer de Lance: one of the deadliest snakes of the region! Surprising encounter after a peaceful weekend afternoon of fishing. — Fer de Lance: one of the deadliest snakes of the region! A surprising encounter after a peaceful weekend afternoon of fishing.

Bombacopsis quinata: our daily spiky field companion...the project site is an entire 20-year-old in-grown plantation. — Bombacopsis quinata: our daily spiky field companion…the project site is an entire 20-year-old in-grown plantation of it.

“¡Pura vida!” again from a piece of conserved Osa rainforest! New wildlife I’ve observed: many scarlet macaw pairs, a bicolored coral snake (the most deadly snake of the region), 2 deadly Fer-de-lances (the third-deadliest snake of the region), a boa at the beach, a 3-toed sloth neighbor, several toucans, a tamandua anteater, and many toad and froggy evening visitors!

As I reflect on my summer goals with Osa Conservation with daily journal entries (as per advice from Adrian Forsyth: Osa Conservation Secretary, co-founder of Osa Conservation, president of Amazon Conservation Association, vice-president of Blue Moon Fund programs, and renown natural history writer), I realize that some of them have been met, others in the process, and others have pleasantly hit me hard without notice.

Environmental science research: I entered with a general goal of learning more about how to conduct professional-level environmental research, and I knew it would be the easiest goal to reach this summer given the nature of my work. I believe I have up to this point surpassed this by designing a carbon-monitoring system from scratch using literature review, so that the project design complies with many of the most up-to-date recommendations from the international carbon-research community and will serve as creditable and practical data for Osa Conservation’s land regeneration and reforestation projects in the near future. It has been and continues to be a blast going into the field everyday and getting pretty close to being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Local environmental advocacy: To respond to a very helpful comment I received on my first blog post, I am doing my entire internship here at Osa in Spanish, including speaking with my Costa Rican supervisor. It is tremendous practice and further helps me learn the lingo and vocabulary associated with nature and the environment so I can better communicate with the people surrounding me here. As of now, I have gotten the chance to explain my project and advocate carbon to other interns and the international Board of Directors in English and the workers and staff—with whom I interact most of the time—in Spanish. As a result of my own initiative, I am in the middle of contributing a bilingual post titled “¿Por qué carbono?” (Why Carbon?) to Osa Conservation’s public online blog (found HERE), which will update local and international readers on my thoughts and experiences here so far. I am also scheduling and will be practicing a general talk about Osa Conservation that is often and will be given at nearby farms and hotels in Puerto Jiménez for the same purpose on a smaller but more important scale. I hope to continue taking advantage of the ways that Osa Conservation promotes their organization and conservation as much as I can, especially touching on climate change. Costa Rica wonderfully seems to inherently value conservation, but I have heard no talk about climate change since I have been here. Climate change is the primary reason for tracking and paying attention to carbon, but perhaps motivations for monitoring carbon here may be more economic. Either way, I will be sure to address this in my blog post…and maybe the Princeton intern who recently told my supervisor, a staff member, and an intern that I am no less than obsessed with carbon.

Envisioning for a non-profit: I have been fortunate enough to live where the Executive Director—a former employee of Conservation International—lives on his days off from meetings and errands in San José. In this time I have regularly sat in on his conversations with guests and have listened to him describe Osa Conservation’s current projects and his plans for the new piece of land that was purchased 2 weeks ago with grants from funders like the Blue Moon Foundation and a loan: restored-forest and sapling monitoring, invasive species removal, active planting and experimental reforestation, building a school for organic and sustainable agriculture for local farmers, and a great deal others. Many of these projects are joint efforts with other highly relevant and quality environmental institutions like EARTH University: a wonderful university focused specifically on agricultural sciences (website HERE). By integrating myself fully in Osa’s professional and philosophical atmosphere, I have very fortunately learned a great deal about what it takes to move a non-profit forward and into which aspects of conservation to mentally branch in today’s modern environmentalist world. This axis of learning has been a beautiful one on which I hope to turn for the rest of my life.

Right now, I am probably most proud of 2 things: having learned to differentiate among many local plant families and genera, and my ability to coordinate a 4-person field-research team on 2 different projects in both English and Spanish everyday. An Earth and Environmental Sciences professor from Lehigh University actually has a somewhat similar project monitoring the survival rates of common local reforestation plant species in the same 20-hectare lot on which my project lies. Every summer (or winter, here) he sends 3 students to work on this project. However, for maximum efficiency managing all other 15+ land-stewardship projects, my supervisor asked me to take responsibility for completing both projects. As it turns out, this was a great idea. I am building my leadership and organizational skills, we are moving faster than ever on both projects, and everyone has more field buddies with whom to learn, laugh, and sing!

The research, networking, and advocacy skills that I am building by interning with Osa Conservation are undoubtedly super relevant and easily transferrable to my pursuit of environmental academia, career plans in environmental research and conservation, and on-campus involvements with groups like SEA.

Sending good vibes back to EST and every other time zone around the world!

Nick Medina ’14

A helmeted iguana (Corytophanes cristatus): another surprise to our tree-measuring adventures!

Our energy levels after a long day in the field!

Life in the Middle of Osa’s Rainforests

¡Pura vida a todos! “Pura vida” literally means “pure life”, but what a wonderful sign it is that it is also a very common greeting here, unique to Costa Rica! It is actually more than just “hello”: it can also mean “goodbye”, “OK”, “cool”, “all right”, “I’m fine, thank you”, and a whole slew of other things! It is also true that everyone here is super nice and loves de-stressing, but before all this ad-libbing about Costa Rican life, here is the most important baseline information about my summer:

Osa Conservation (Conservación Osa) is a non-profit organization that protects and promotes the immense biodiversity on the Osa Peninsula: home to >50% of all of Costa Rica’s living species and therefore 2.5% of the planet’s biodiversity (all of Costa Rica has 5%). The peninsula originated as a separate large island in the Pacific but merged with Central America about 2 million years ago, which explains Osa’s tremendous biodiversity. Living things are known to evolve faster on islands—a likelihood that resulted in a vast number of endemic species and very unique tropical ecosystems found nowhere else in our solar system. In short, Osa is truly and absolutely a stellar physical environment. Learn more about the organization HERE.

I live 24/7 at the Greg Gund Conservation Center: a research station situated in the middle of protected secondary rainforest, several of Osa Conservation’s reforestation plantations, and adjacent to Corcovado National Park. Despite living among jaguars, pumas, and ocelots, to my surprise everyone here sleeps very soundly with their doors and windows completely open. But actually to my surprise—I had no idea about this norm until after waking up from a nap my first afternoon upon arrival with my eyes wide open literally being able to see nothing—all I saw was black. Nothing at all like turning all of your house lights off—no. You open your eyes wide, wiggle them frantically all around, and can see NOTHING. I felt my way over to close all windows and doors and huddled in fetal position on my bed prepared to fight because my supervisor told me earlier that day that interns have come and left literally the next day because they could not stand the darkness or scary rainforest sounds at night. If I am going to learn to survive in the jungle, I need a flashlight ASAP. Thankfully, my supervisor stopped by a few minutes later, told me that there is no danger, and this jungle is now my home.

The research station is a tightly-knit community of local staff and researchers. I sleep 2 minutes away from where my supervisor does, which is great because we get to throw ideas back and forth often and get to know each other better. I believe this is somewhat how research life is; dreaming, eating, sleeping, and breathing what you love in pursuit of making the world a better place. I am super excited to be living it now.

I got this opportunity with the help of a former Brandeis student who was Osa Conservation’s General Manager until just recently. She came to speak to my ecology class last semester, we networked over coffee at Einstein’s, and we corresponded through e-mail to discuss project opportunities that lay at a crossroads between each of our interests before putting together our funding application.

I am working here on monitoring a 20-year-old reforestation plantation of Bombacopsis quinata regarding the amount of atmosphere-sequestered carbon that the area stores as a means of providing a model that can help further research about general trends in tropical-rainforest regeneration, the potential for tropical rainforests to serve as carbon sinks with which to mitigate climate change, and optimal parameters for future tropical-forest conservation projects (especially those in which Osa is involved). This survey will also include edge-effect and species-specific information so as to target more potential information about regenerating tropical rainforests. Here is a great guide for all carbon-measuring projects, and therefore the one I am using for this project: HERE. I have also served as translator for student groups led by local hiking guides.

During my first week here I met the majority of Osa’s staff and other researchers working with Osa, learned to navigate the “backyard” (AKA forest) where I will be working alone using a map and GPS, and worked on the experimental design aspect of the monitoring project, which involved days of staring at the computer learning how to work with completely new but immensely valuable GIS software, a key part of almost all environmental research. What takes years of learning curves I learned in about 2 days…my eyes hurt a little! My supervisor is very helpful conceptually but likes to be hand-off in the practical sense; a method which feels very conducive to learning and growth. Throughout this summer, I hope to learn much more about conducting reliable forestry research and ways through which to effectively communicate environmental-conservation news to audiences with weaker environmental consciences.

I will send love from Brandeis to all of the lizards, iguanas, snakes, toads, pelicans, monkeys, and scarlet-macaw couples I see!

Nick Medina ’14

A map of the rainforest patch I am working with that I made using the GIS program I learned. I live in "Cerro Osa", ~800m along the blue trail from the plantation. — A map of the rainforest patch I am working with that I made using the GIS program I learned. I live in “Cerro Osa”, ~800m along the blue trail from the plantation.

A pregnant spider monkey hanging out at an Osa research station!