In April this ebullient group of students from the Department of Fine Arts, University of Puerto Rico, arrived on a day trip to find out more about the forest plantations at Las Casas de la Selva, and to see the timber operation; the sawmill, drying shed, and workshop. Everyone was wowed by our wood collection, that we inherited from Jose Mari Mutt, and have been adding to. Eyes opened wide at the beauty of these different and relatively unknown hardwoods that Puerto Rico has. Many discussions ensued about sustainable use of forest resources, especially wood, and later all left smiling, having bought some of our wood to create their latest projects. We look forward to seeing the results soon.
Daniel DioGuardi and Karen Babis volunteered in 2015, getting down and dirty on homestead clean-ups and helping on logistics with an Earthwatch teen team
Tim Dehm has volunteered at Las Casas de la Selva since late September 2015. He is taking a break and hopes to return in 2016. Tim managed the homestead whilst 3t and Andrés were at the Annual Institute of Ecotechnics Conference in Santa Fe, NM. Tim is working on fine-woodworking along with a host of other project responsibilities.
L-R: Luis Martínez Rodríguez, Ruth (Tata) Santiago, Wanda I. Rodríguez Rivera,Yaminnette Rodríguez, Ricardo Valle Pérez & Tim Dehm
William Davidowski, is retired, and since August 2015 volunteers his time helping in the wood-shop, making products to sell, passing on his fine woodworking knowledge to ready, able, and willing apprentices.
Natalie Harrison dropped in for a couple of weeks in December 2015 to help with all and everything.
CEO of The Institute for Regional Conservation, Craig van der Heiden, and his wife Sheryl, stopped in for a day to see the project and understand a bit more about what we do here.
Kamal Dagistani volunteered for ten days and helped with all logistics for an Earthwatch team 28th Dec 2015- 6th Jan 2016.
Wanda Rodriguez, from Guayama volunteered on gardens.
Big Thanks to all our volunteers in 2015. Whether here for long or short stays, every little bit of help -helps!!
Earthwatch Team 4, July 2015. This team of teenage Earthwatchers spent time in the forest with 3t collecting seedlings, planting and monitoring endangered endemic tree species, and time with Norman in Hormiga Valley on herpetological surveys. Karen Babis,an Earthwatch volunteer in the past and her partner, Daniel Dioguardi spent time at the project and helped out in the field. Big thanks to Earthwatch Program Manager, Kyle Hutton, (third from left in image below), and Lena Cosentino for great teen team leadership. Myriam Bourassa made this wonderful video (https://youtu.be/n1me_5p_CLc) of her time here.
Images by 3t Vakil, Karen Babis, Andres Rua, Lena Cosentino, and Daniel DioGuardi 2015
If you are ready for a life challenge, interested in your personal development, and feel that you have useful skills and proficiency, or perhaps would like to learn how to do something completely new and different, hold a genuine love of the natural world, and want to live with other people and experience cultural changes, and life in another biome, please contact us. We welcome you to participate in VolunTREEadventure, the project’s total system as a volunteer. Three weeks is a good way to start.
Alfredo Lopez Nieves
Cho Hee Schrader and Chris DeForce
Hellen Galli
Stratton Yatron & Matt
Will Robinson
We give big thanks and appreciation to everyone that comes to live with us and volunteer their time and energy; we meet as strangers and leave as friends. Andres, 3t, and Magha.
Thank you Earthwatchers for your help in herpetological surveys, planting of endangered endemic trees, Cornutia obovata and Styrax portoricensis, and for help in the nursery re-potting seedlings collected from the previous year.
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Principal Investigators: Dr. Mark Nelson, 3t Vakil, Norman Greenhawk.
2015 Images by 3t Vakil, Lisa Bennet, and Susannah Garrett.
Joel Kaufman of Ellicott City, MD, has created this fine intarsia piece in about 6 months, and we are honored to share it with you. The pattern was replicated from a Phillip Ratner tapestry. There are 50 different wood species using no stains or coloring with over 400 individual pieces. It has over 100 shims and measures 19” x 35”.
Joel: “The blue mahoe pieces are the water on both sides of the ark, the whale’s spout of water (this is where I love the varying shades of blue mahoe), the translucent pieces through the whale and the stripe on one of the people on the ark. No other wood I could find had these various shades of blue/purple/green and it was very easy to cut, shape, sand and finish”.
Using tested methods, humanure composting is underway at Las Casas de la Selva with impressive results. 3t has been very successfully composting humanure for over a decade. The process is exactly the same as an ordinary compost and along with depositing the humanure, (feces & urine), the compost pile is augmented with garden prunings, grass cuttings, leaves, etc. This pile is left to sit for at least a year and two months before use. The quality of this humus is phenomenal fertilizer for plant growing.
Shavings from the planer, all hardwoods from our forest, no treated wood. Smells great too.
Regular toilets usually flush humanure away into septic tanks using clean water, but it could instead be converted, through composting, into lush vegetative growth. Humanure is a valuable resource and saves a ton of water. These humanure toilets were built at Las Casas de la Selva, by Andres and 3t in February 2013, and we have been collecting all our volunteers valuable deposits ever since.
Deep colored, rich compost ready for using in the gardens. You can’t buy this anywhere!
In April 2015, we were fortunate enough to receive two teams from the Northshore YMCA in Salem, MA. These teams all got involved with various tasks that ranged from creating a new trail, making a dam, to setting up new tables in our nursery and moving all the saplings from last year’s collections into the nursery. A good clean up of the wood drying shed was also really appreciated. Special thanks to staff, Matt Buchanen, John Brinkmanship, Kat Moser, and AnnMarie Green for the first group, and the second group, Graeme Marcoux, Cat Marcoux and Katie Coleman.
As always a huge thank you to all these volunteers who shared their lives with us in April 2015.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus All dimensions are in inches and all slabs are slightly larger than stated. All pieces have been planed on both sides. Ends are Anchor-sealed. Shipping is not included, send an email for a quote.
1) Your shipping address. 2) Your shipping preference for a quote: USPS Priority (4-6 days) or USPS Retail Ground (14-18 days) .
We accept secure payments through Paypal.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus, is a large forest tree endemic to Jamaica, Cuba, and now naturalized in Puerto Rico. The straight stems of mature specimens can rise to a height of 80 feet, with trunk diameters of 12 to 18 inches, on favorable sites attaining diameters of 36 inches. Its relatively fast growth makes mahoe a highly suitable candidate for sustainable forestry management. The leaves are long-stalked heart-shaped, flowers are large and funnel shaped, usually red, but occasionally yellow or orange. Mahoe is a moderately hard wood with a specific gravity of 0.58-0.62. The heartwood is very durable, highly resistant to attack by decay fungus, and resistant to subterranean termites. The fairly straight grain is richly variegated with shades of steely blues, metal grays, deep purples and pinks, olive greens and yellows, creams and browns, along with an elegant chatoyance in the wood. The narrow sapwood is pale white and subtly flecked, creating an attractive contrast with the heartwood. From reports and our own experience, the timber is generally easy to saw, plane, route, mould, mortise, carve, glue, nail, screw, sand, and turn, with a natural gloss in the wood when finished. It responds very well to both hand and machine tools in all woodworking operations. The wood has a musical quality and has been traditionally used in the making of cuatros, (puertorican guitars). Fine boxes, furnitures, inlay works, floors, details, turned pieces, exquisite jewelleries, sculptures, and ancient board games, have been, and demand to be transformed from the Mahoe. Architects, furniture-makers, designers, artists & wood lovers will find a charm in working with this wood.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus All dimensions are in inches and all slabs are slightly larger than stated. All pieces have been planed on both sides. Ends are Anchor-sealed. Shipping is not included, send an email for a quote.
1) Your shipping address. 2) Your shipping preference for a quote: USPS Priority (4-6 days) or USPS Retail Ground (14-18 days) .
We accept secure payments through Paypal.
Mahoe,Hibiscus elatus, is a large forest tree endemic to Jamaica, Cuba, and now naturalized in Puerto Rico. The straight stems of mature specimens can rise to a height of 80 feet, with trunk diameters of 12 to 18 inches, on favorable sites attaining diameters of 36 inches. Its relatively fast growth makes mahoe a highly suitable candidate for sustainable forestry management. The leaves are long-stalked heart-shaped, flowers are large and funnel shaped, usually red, but occasionally yellow or orange. Mahoe is a moderately hard wood with a specific gravity of 0.58-0.62. The heartwood is very durable, highly resistant to attack by decay fungus, and resistant to subterranean termites. The fairly straight grain is richly variegated with shades of steely blues, metal grays, deep purples and pinks, olive greens and yellows, creams and browns, along with an elegant chatoyance in the wood. The narrow sapwood is pale white and subtly flecked, creating an attractive contrast with the heartwood. From reports and our own experience, the timber is generally easy to saw, plane, route, mould, mortise, carve, glue, nail, screw, sand, and turn, with a natural gloss in the wood when finished. It responds very well to both hand and machine tools in all woodworking operations. The wood has a musical quality and has been traditionally used in the making of cuatros, (puertorican guitars). Fine boxes, furnitures, inlay works, floors, details, turned pieces, exquisite jewelleries, sculptures, and ancient board games, have been, and demand to be transformed from the Mahoe. Architects, furniture-makers, designers, artists & wood lovers will find a charm in working with this wood.
This all-ladies team helped out with a whole host of tasks, including the on-going plastering of the new terrace wall, and workshop cleaning, clearing, and management. Along with a salsa dance class, they enjoyed the rivers in the forest of Las Casas de la Selva, and also took a paddle-boarding class at Inches Beach in Patillas, with Omar Garcia. Thank you ladies for all your enthusiastic teamwork, we enjoyed your company immensely.
Fountain Valley High School from Colorado Springs, in their second annual collaboration with Las Casas de la Selva. This team of enthusiastic teenagers worked on the ethnobotanical trail, helped grade the main drive, helped in the wood workshop, learnt how to use a lathe with Andres Rua, and turn wood, had a Puertorrican cooking class with Magha Garcia Medina, enjoyed a salsa dance class with Yara, and after an afternoon at the beach, Villa Pesqueras in Patillas, and a wonderful dinner at Habitarte, Route PR 15, with Wanda and Riccardo. It was a pleasure to get to know you all.
In their third year of collaboration with Las Casas de la Selva, this App State Team worked hard on maintenance of the main drive, our life-line to the outside. In amongst all this manual labor we ate well, thanks to Magha Garcia Medina, and also visited the Habitarte Project on Route PR 15. Thanks to Wanda and Riccardo for hosting us for an evening. We also took the team to swim and kayak off the spectacular Villa Pesquera, Patillas Beach. Several of the team were lucky to swim with three manatees that frequent this zone. Thank you App State…hope we see you back next year!
Pepperdine University students spent seven days at Las Casas de la Selva, helping with various tasks led by Andrés Rúa, ranging from plastering the new retaining wall and walls on the main house, as well as work on the ethnobotanical trail, step-building, pruning, and prepping surfaces for more work. This team were lucky to have a cooking class with renowned gourmet chef Magha Garcia Medina, and a rocking Salsa Dance Class with Yara Soler Garcia.
We had a superb time with this team, and we thank you all for all the joy and enthusiasm that you brought to the project. Please revisit in the future! Thanks also to William Robinson who has been volunteering here for one month.
On the second day of the group’s visit, Simarouba, our beautiful white cat gave birth to 5 kittens. Magha Garcia Medina takes the students on an exploration of the foods of Puerto Rico, and we end up with a Sancocho for dinner. If you have never had Sancocho, here’s the place to come and try it!
University Of Colorado, Colorado Springs, students spent 6 days at Las Casas de la Selva, and helped build a retaining wall, as well as prune and maintain the wastewater garden. We all had a great time and we really appreciate all the hard work in rainy weather. U of C, we salute you all!
Back L-R: Stan Rullman Cindy Stieger, Margaret Baisley, PI Norman Greenhawk Front L-R: PI 3t Vakil, Charlotte Field, Colleen Casey, Andrés Rúa All pix on this page thanks to all above.
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 steep and remote areas of Icaco and Hormiga Valleys of Las Casas de la Selva have never been surveyed for amphibians. Herpetologist Norman Greenhawk led a team of volunteers into the forest to search for target species of frogs in this vast area, to identify and gather information about amphibians to better assist with the future management of this area. The expedition started on 16th July, and continued to 8th August 2014. The team set up camp in the forest, prepared their own food, and faced some days of extremely challenging windy and rainy weather, including an interruption of the study by Tropical Storm Bertha! The team included college students from the continental US, Puerto Rico, an Earthwatch Teen Team, and Dr. Gabriela Agostini from Argentina. They and came back with a lot of data.
The target species that were confirmed to exist in the valleys were: IUCN Endangered Eleutherodactylus wightmanae (the Coqui Melodioso), IUCN Vulnerable Eleutherodactylus cooki (Coqui Guajon), and IUCN Critically endangered Eleutherodactylus richmondi (Coqui Caoba).
During the surveys, the team sampled for Chytridiomycosis, an infectious disease of amphibians, caused by the chytrid Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a non-hyphal zoosporic fungus, that is currently killing off amphibians around the world. GPS co-ordinates of appropriate information were taken to allow for mapping of the range of target species within the valley, and high quality photos of the frogs were taken to help show the myriad variation of colors and patterns within a single species.
The initial survey is over and the data is being compiled. Norman has met with personnel of the US Fish and Wildlife Service to help determine future monitoring and research. Once the results of the Chytrid sampling are delivered from the San Diego Zoo, a report will be written up and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. This survey will continue with a smaller team, as the mountain ridge that separates the two valleys needs to be accessed and sampled.
Norman expresses deep gratitude to team members Sarah Bryan, Jessica Rosado, Marla Gonzalez, Sara Gabel, Sara Zlotnik, Alessandra Belmonte, Sam Boas, Kaitlin Panzer, Lauren Billy, and co-team leader Gabi Agostini. Huge thanks also to Earthwatch Team members: Alana Salas-Yoshii, Josie Icaza, Samantha Riesberg, and their facilitator, Sushmita Sridhar.
Big, big thanks to the Mohammad bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, CREOi, Roland Pesch and Kathy Rosskoph, without whom this survey would not have been able to be carried through.
Lastly, a special thanks to Thrity Vakil & Andrés Rúa for help with logistics, Leah Chevrier-Rappaport for extra volunteer help, and to Jan Zegarra of the US Fish & Wildlife Service for his encouragement, help with analyzing the results, and for consultation concerning future research possibilities.
Meet the team: L-R Back: Sam Boas, Norman Greenhawk, Marla M. Barrios González, Lauren Billy, Alessandra Belmonte, Sara Gabel. L-R Front: Leah Chevrier-Rappaport, Sarah Bryan, Jessica Rosado, Gabriela Agostini, Sara Zlotnik
EARTHWATCH PARTICIPATION: For several days of the survey, the team also comprised of three teenage Earthwatchers, Alana Salas-Yoshii, Josie Icaza, Samantha Riesberg, and their facilitator, Sushmita Sridhar.
