Restoration & Preservation
Typical hillside restoration
Pico Bonito National Park is home to many endangered and threatened species, and provides essential connectivity for the Meso-American Biological Corridor. Its natural resources have been seriously degraded due to marginal agriculture and cattle grazing. Beyond commercial reforestation, the company will reforest large land areas for restoration purposes only around the Pico Bonito National Park. This will include reintroducing native species to restore habitats for rare and endangered species, and for slope stabilization and watershed protection purposes. Slope stabilization of soils is particularly important in the event of severe weather.
Beyond the commercial reforestation, large land areas will be reforested for restoration purposes only - to protect vulnerable water catchments and expand habitat for rare and endangered species. These activities will sequester carbon from the atmosphere and thus create carbon offsets, reintroduce native forest species, and set in place a permanent mechanism for plant, animal, and ecosystem preservation.
Within these restoration areas, the Company will focus its activities based on the principles of successional restoration. Successional restoration uses the natural successional stages found during the re-establishment of the ecosystem after disturbance to accomplish the majority of the restoration, with active treatments limited to those which will establish the conditions for succession, or enhance the successional process.
Primary forests in this area are typified by highly diverse ecological communities. One of the primary components of these communities are large forest canopy trees, which provide shade and microclimates for the diverse mid story trees and understory vegetation, as well as growing sites for epiphytic species, and habitat for arboreal animals and birds. Early establishment of dominant canopy species will speed the development of niche and species diversity – leading to long term recovery and preservation of these highly unique and environmentally sensitive biodiverse areas.
