Environment

Bioluminescent fungi, Oct 2023

Bioluminescent fungi -Hygrocybe prieta
Hygrocybe prieta: bioluminescent fungi. This is a mushroom of the waxcap genus Hygrocybe. *

Exploring the Enchanted Forest: Night-Time Hikes with Kurt Miller in Las Casas de la Selva Forest.

A team of adventurous explorers was granted the extraordinary opportunity to witness one of the natural world’s most enchanting phenomena: the trails of the Las Casas de la Selva rainforest illuminated by the ethereal glow of bioluminescent fungi. Under the expert guidance of the esteemed mycologist Kurt Miller, the participants embarked on a mesmerizing midnight trek. This unique journey allowed them to immerse themselves in the forest’s captivating luminescence, where the natural radiance of the fungi became the highlight of their adventure.

Kurt Miller, with his expertise and passion for fungi, led the group through the dense foliage, unveiling the hidden wonders of the forest under the cover of darkness. The bioluminescent fungi, a phenomenon where fungi emit light through a chemical reaction, turned the forest into a living, glowing entity. This extraordinary sight, often unseen by the day’s light, offered participants a unique glimpse into the mystical life of the rainforest.

The event, seamlessly organized by Raquel Torres-Arzola, included not just the hike but an immersive experience with an overnight stay in the heart of the rainforest. Raquel’s efforts ensured that every participant was well taken care of, providing a delicious dinner and breakfast that catered to all food preferences, making the adventure as comfortable as it was exhilarating.

Special thanks are also due to 3t, Paula Isabel Arzola, Abdelmonem Assi, and Andres Rua, whose contributions were invaluable in making the event a success. Their help with organizing and managing the logistics allowed participants to fully immerse themselves in the experience without worry.

For those adventurous souls who missed out on this spectacular event, there’s good news. Raquel Torres-Arzola is your go-to contact for signing up for future expeditions. These night-time hikes are tailored for those who are able to navigate the forest’s terrain after dark. Whether you’re looking to join as an individual or as part of a friend or family group of up to 18 people, there’s an opportunity for everyone. It’s important to note that these adventures are designed for physically fit participants over the age of 15, ensuring that all involved can safely enjoy the hike.

Las Casas de la Selva rainforest offers more than just a hike; it offers an opportunity to connect with nature on a profound level, to see the unseen, and to learn from experts like Kurt Miller. If you’re seeking an adventure that combines the thrill of exploration with the beauty of nature’s own light show, then this is an experience you won’t want to miss.

Stay tuned for more opportunities to explore the glowing heart of the rainforest and witness the magic of bioluminescent fungi with Kurt Miller and the dedicated team that makes these journeys possible.

Lentinus scleropus at Las Casas de la Selva, Patillas, Puerto Rico.

Thank you, Kurt Miller, for your love of fungi.

*Hygrocybe prieta: bioluminescent fungi. This is a mushroom of the waxcap genus Hygrocybe. Described as new to science in 1990, it is found in Puerto Rico, where it grows on clay banks under boulders and elevated tree roots.

Latest Videos, Press, & Publications

For Tropic Ventures Research & Education Foundation, 2021 began with Naples Botanical Garden in Florida securing a grant from the Association of Zoological Horticulture to fund the building of a new tree nursery at our project in Patillas, Puerto Rico, after the devastation of all our tree nurseries in Hurricane Maria in 2017. Following this, the 2021 Botanical Gardens Conservation International & Global Tree Campaign agreement and grant opportunity to survey for two threatened endemic species was a huge accomplishment; a proposal for the conservation of two Puerto Rican endemic trees, Garcinia portoricensis & Ravenia urbanii. Thrity Vakil, director of TVREF, immediately set about creating a diverse team comprised of plant and tree experts, and experts in the fields of ecology, biology, taxonomy, bryology, mycology, and zoology. (TVREF is also known as Eye on the Rainforest, which is the name of its website).

Take a short drone flight over Las Casas de la Selva, Sustainable Forestry & Rainforest Enrichment Project, established in 1983 in Patillas, Puerto Rico. August 2021.
Footage by Brent Foley, Production by Alfredo Lopez.

Earthday Botanical Survey 2021, at Las Casas de la Selva, Sustainable forestry & Rainforest Enrichment Project in Patillas, Puerto Rico. Filmwork: Raymesh Cintron, Narrator: 3t Vakil, Soundtrack: Andrés Rúa

“Re-examining Crises as Opportunities for Change: Sustainable Forestry, Log salvage, and Hardwood production after extreme social, ecological & technological disturbances in Puerto Rico.”
Since 2014, the Yale University Chapter of the International Society of Tropical Foresters (ISTF) has awarded an Innovation Prize at its annual conference to honor outstanding initiatives and ideas related to tropical forest use and conservation.  Thrity was selected as one of three finalists to tell the story of Las Casas de la Selva, Puerto Rico Hardwoods, and the Institute of Ecotechnics. February 2021
Images and footage: 3t Vakil, Andrés Rúa, Tom Marvel, & Greg Byers.

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on the morning of 20th September 2017. Tropic Ventures Sustainable Forestry and Rainforest Enrichment Project established 35 years ago, lay directly in her path. This is 3t’s visual story of the impact of Hurricane Maria on the rainforest project in Patillas, on the land known as Las Casas de la Selva, southeast Puerto Rico.

Film and photos by 3t Vakil, and Andrés Rúa. Edited by Corinna MacNeice. Use headphones to appreciate the soundscape.

“Seas, rain forests, and saving coral reefs” Long Lost Friends talks with 3T Vakil


“Painting and saving forests in Puerto Rico” Long Lost Friends talks with 3T Vakil


“Saving Endangered Trees” Long Lost Friends talks with 3T Vakil


PRESS & PUBLICATIONS

  1. In 2021, the Global Tree Campaign has partnered with Eye on the Rainforest, a Puerto Rican NGO, with the aims of conserving tree species most at risk of extinction by increasing the technical capacity of project partners and improving the conservation status of these tree species.  https://globaltrees.org/projects/securing-the-conservation-of-endemic-trees-in-puerto-rico/
  2. 3t made a virtual presentation to the Rotary Club of San Juan in September 2021.
  3. Conserve Magazine: https://www.naplesgarden.org/wp-ontent/uploads/2021/08/Conserve.pdf
    See pages 16 to 20. 3t’s photo of the Las Casas forest made the front cover!





HELP US rescue the wood from fallen trees after Hurricane Maria

Friends around the planet! Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico. All around us there are fallen trees of valuable hardwoods. We cannot allow these tree trunks to be dumped into landfill or chipped into small pieces. Help us raise the funds needed to begin the process of dealing with the situation.

The road in front of us is long and hard, but we must be responsible for our futures and create sustainable living on this small island of Puerto Rico, in every way possible. If you feel helpless right now, here is one way to help relief efforts, by helping us to save tree trunks from the debris and to mill the wood for use.

Puerto Rico Hardwoods (PRH),maintains that sustainability must start with minimization of waste, and intelligent use of local resources rather than contributing to the devastation of forests in other countries.

As many of you know, PRH was created and developed by Andrés Rúa and Thrity Vakil. As founders and former directors of the Agroforestry Development Advisory Council (CADA), Rúa and Vakil’s broader vision is to promote sustainable forestry on the island, and to reduce the vegetative waste going to landfill. They are both current Directors of Tropic Ventures Sustainable Forestry and Rainforest Enrichment Project in Patillas, Puerto Rico, established 30 years ago by The Institute of Ecotechnics.

Thank you for your support. We cannot do it without you.

14th October, 2017

Hilda Soltero – 30 years later “a dream made into reality”, December 2014

Hilda Soltero was the Secretary of The Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources in the early 1980s, and it was she that flew John Allen over the island when he was looking for a place to start a sustainable forestry project. Dr. Mark Nelson and John Rubio Druitt met with Dr. Frank Wadsworth in 1983 to discuss the possibilities. In 1983, Las Casas de la Selva was born. Today in December 2014, we shared with Hilda great discussions, stories, visions and plans, and enjoyed the company of her two sons and four grand kids. Thank you Hilda for your continuing support of tropical forestry, along with this project here in Patillas, and look forward to working with you on the mission of sustainable forestry in Puerto Rico.

The Wastewater Gardener by our very own Dr. Mark Nelson

For all those who partook in an Earthwatch expedition or any other volunteer escapade with myself, Thrity, Andres or Norman at Las Casas de la Selva and experienced the beauty of the project’s unique sewage system. I have good news!

I have written a book on the wonderful world of poo: “The Wastewater Gardener: Preserving the Planet One Flush at a Time” BUY IT HERE: https://wastewatergardener.com/

From the preface: “This book had its genesis the first time I tipped over an outhouse and shoveled the steaming contents into a wheelbarrow headed for the humanure compost heap. I was a city kid, I didn’t know the stuff was taboo. When I was selected to be a “biospherian” crew member for the first two year closure experiment of Biosphere 2, was it destiny that one of my responsibilities was managing our “marsh recycling system” for all the wastewater? Later, when I fell in love with wetlands, natural and constructed, I decided to make myself useful by tackling sewage problems around the world. That in turn, led me to one improbable adventure after another, a veritable Wonderland of strange goings on, at times straining my incredulity. Fortunately, I kept my inner yogas: keep your optimism and belief you can make a difference, and never lose your sense of humor!

It occurred to me these “adventures in the shit trade” have more than purely anecdotal humor value. I got to see what is hidden for good reason from most people, though sometimes it took persistence and detective work to find out what was really happening. I feel a responsibility to share what I have seen and learned with a greater audience. Everything is connected to everything (as they say in ecology), and how we manage and mismanage our shit, is a crucial part of the global challenge of our times. Conventional industrial-style agriculture doesn’t use animal manure = we turn our farms into monocultures, raise our animals in factory farms, use lots of chemical fertilizers which are expensive, release greenhouse gases and nutrients runoff our farms in great quantities polluting our waters and oceans. In the West, we centralize sewage treatment = sending all of its nutrients into our rivers and oceans, instead of back to our farms or green spaces. Rather than irrigating using gray water, we use precious high quality potable water. In poorer countries, there is virtually no effective sewage treatment at all = widespread contamination of drinking water leading to disease, death and further impoverishment.

We all know the story, “The Emperor has no Clothes”. This book is the global black comedy which unfolds when the little boy opens his eyes. I do hope you enjoy the ride. I promise it’ll change the way you think about at least one of the so-called “little things” we do in life.”

The book takes the reader on a humorous global tour of how we treat and mistreat human wastes. Even the common word for our bodily wastes: “sh*^#t” is taboo so we don’t talk about it and don’t think intelligently about how to use it properly. And our sewage is a global catastrophe. In the West we treat it like a toxic waste, spend enormous energy and resources to pump it to centralized sewage treatment plants where much machinery and chemicals are employed, then generally dump the treated wastewater with its load of freshwater and nutrients into the nearest body of water – rivers, lakes, ocean. In the developing world, 95% of sewage is untreated and pollutes drinking water everywhere.

So after a brief history of how we “got into this mess” with a review of traditional Asia where city “night soil” was a source of revenue as it was sold to boatmen who took it upriver to farmers who composted it, maintaining the fertility of the soils that produce the city’s food. Then came specialized farming so even animal wastes are now replaced by expensive chemical fertilizers, half of which run off the soils to pollute water. And for the cities, came indoor plumbing so that water use greatly increased, and flush toilets require up to 10 tons of water to move 1 ton of human waste.

But no need for despair, the paradigms are changing and there a number of alternatives which are gaining traction which offer a return to valuing and using bodily wastes as a source of valuable nutrients and water. These include composting toilets, constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment and reuse, hygienic use of sewage for agriculture and aquaponics, gray water irrigation. On the water conserving sides, there are low-water methods of farming – including drip irrigation – and utilization of wastewater which contains the natural nutrients needed for landscaping or gardening, instead of using potable water with chemical fertilizers.

I take the reader on my personal odyssey into the world of “poo power” – learning by doing.

First stop is Synergia Ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico where a group of people found the Institute of Ecotechnics and take on reversing the desertification of this semi-arid once prosperous high grassland. A thousand trees are planted, I briefly become the “horseshit king of New Mexico” making hundreds of tons of compost from our farm animals and the 1200 horses at the nearby racetrack. Photographs contrast the stark landscape of the 1970s to the new rich oasis, with organic orchard and vegetable farm that was created.

After a stint in West Australia starting the tropical savannah project of the Institute, I return to the U.S. to help with the Biosphere 2 project – the world’s first artificial biosphere, covering 3 acres with rainforest, savannah, desert, coral reef ocean, Everglades marsh and 8 people and their farm enclosed in an air-tight structure. There is no “away” in Biosphere 2 – as in, we can “throw it away”; everything has to be recycled if the world is to sustain itself. I manage and research our constructed wetland which treats and recycles all our human, domestic animal and laboratory wastewater inside for two years. It’s a revelation and I appreciate that a system like this needs to be spread around on planet – and could be a way to get people connected to some of their basic realities – where their water comes from and where their wastes go. Constructed wetlands are a natural approach – mimicing the power of natural wetlands to serve as the planet’s kidneys – so sunlight, gravity, green plants and microbes are needed, not machinery, chemicals etc. They also can be scaled from serving an individual house to cities with tens of thousands of people. There are several which cover more than a thousand acres.

While completing a Ph.D. with the systems ecologists at the University of Florida’s Center for Wetlands, I design and build a couple of “Wastewater Gardens” along the Yucatan coast south of Cancun, Mexico (with the assistance in the early years of the Biosphere Foundation, later the Institute of Ecotechnics) and use it for my dissertation research. We make the systems beautiful with a wide diversity of fruit and flowering trees and shrubs, not just boring “reed beds”. The systems are popular – being “subsurface flow wetlands”, there is no exposed sewage, it’s all kept beneath a dry layer of gravel – and we pass the “sniff test”! Then lots of hotels and people want it for their homes – and we go into business!

This business, now called “Wastewater Gardens International” (www.wastewatergardens.com) takes me in the following decades around the world: Bali and Indonesia, the Bahamas, Western and Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, the Philippines and back to the outback in northwest West Australia, doing a number of Wastewater Garden projects on indigenous Aboriginal communities. The book takes people on a ground-truth, nitty-gritty ride of dealing with health system bureaucrats (“diaper phobia” or “nappy neurosis”), differing cultures and attitudes, Sherlock Holmesing the mysteries of what’s actually happening (e.g. wastewater waterfalls in the Atlas Mountains, 5 star resorts using unsterilized wastewater to grow lettuce (!), unsealed “septic tanks” etc.

Along the way, we have lots of examples of practical projects using a variety of new approaches, and photographs galore. New of the most recent projects are a crescent-moon shaped Wastewater Garden in southern Algeria and a proposed art/ecology project, Eden in Iraq (www.meridelrubenstein.com/eden-in-iraq/) for Marsh Arab towns in the historic Fertile Crescent area of southern Iraq.

I end the book with seven guidelines for better management of our wastes: 1. Separate shit from the water cycle wherever possible. 2. Use water of the appropriate quality, according to need 3. Conserve water – drip irrigation, low-water appliances 4. Use wastewater to create green belts 5. Treat and reuse shit locally wherever possible. 6. Don’t mix industrial waste with residential waste 7. Send the sludge and compost made from human shit back to the land in an economical way, maintaining the health and productivity of our soils

So the book is both a global black comedy and is filled with concrete examples at micro and macro-scale of how we can and are beginning to fix the problems.

The paradigms they are changin’ – appropriate in a world with scarce water resources and the desire of everyone to live in a bountiful and healthy biosphere.

…from the book’s ending:

“I would therefore like to add a Fecesphere meditation. Each time you go to the toilet to take a dump, be mindful of what you are doing. “Where does my water come from?” “Where does my shit go?” Then perhaps, investigate, find out. You will be way more connected to reality by trying this simple meditation and you’ll come to understand how life on this planet is indeed sustained. Then ask: “How can I make this activity healthier for my local ecosystem and indeed the biosphere?” “How can I change the world?”

The answer is not in the glorious, perfected hereafter (“there’ll be pie in the sky when you die”) but right now, beginning with understanding the “travel itinerary” of your shit. How do we change the world, help create the Earth we want and need? No action is trivial or unimportant.

We change the world one small step at a time, one flush at a time.”

Here is the Wastewater Garden at Las Casas de la Selva…

Educación, Interpretación e Investigación en Bosques y Áreas Naturales

4to. Simposio de Educación, Interpretación e Investigación en Bosques y Áreas Naturales,

Viernes, 21 de marzo de 2014, Edificio de Agencias Ambientales, Rio Piedras.

Speakers:
Introduction and closing by Frank H. Wadsworth
Carmen Guerrero Pérez, Secretaria – DRNA
Dayamaris Candelario, Directora – Centro Ambiental Santa Ana (CASA)
Astrid Maldonado, Asistente de Proyecto – Para la Naturaleza
Pedro Rios, Forest Staff Officer – US Forest Service
Glorienell Pérez Vélez, INTER (Receinto de Bayamon)
Edgardo González González – DRNA
Eliezer Nieves, Ayudant Especial de la Oficina de la Secretaria -DRNA
Christian Torres, Director – Parque Doña Inés (FLMM)
Waldemar Feliciano Estudiante Subgraduado – INTER (Bayamon)
Julio Vallejo González, Coordinador de Alcance Comunitario – San Juan ULTRA

Gracias Yaritza Bobonis y Dayamaris Candelario y voluntaries por une dia muy interesante.

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