Sunsets over the Mountain Pine Ridge

I love sunsets. I always have. As a boy, my father would take me to the Pacific shore to watch the sun set over the sea and he would use that as a visual metaphor for, well, for whatever he wanted to talk to me about. Getting things done on time. Passage of time. The world. New horizons. Everything under the sun.

This blog entry shows what we accomplished between two sunsets, Thursday, January 5 and Friday, January 6. I have embedded snapshots I took and short, unedited video-clips by Rhea. Just a little text so you can go through as fast or slow as you wish. As always, comments are appreciated, either here, by email or on Facebook.

After our busy day at Hidden Valley Inn, we went home to Blancaneaux. The kind people there love wildlife and have helped me in my attempts to learn more about the mammals that live in the forest around their wonderful lodge. If you have been a guest there, you know what a magical place it is. If not, their website give a sense of the wonder: http://www.coppolaresorts.com/blancaneaux

I use the word "home"' as Blancaneux feels homey. The people who work there greet us like cousins they have not seen since the last reunion. Those reunions come too far apart!

We went up the stairs to our usual room and looked East:

From 2012-01-06

and then West:

From 2012-01-06

Yes, we had used every bit of daylight before we arrived. Fortunately we knew the steps to the huge horseshoe-shaped hot tub down by the stream bank and so could soak away the muscle aches from a long day of hiking.

After breakfast, we set out with the legendary Roni deep into the Mountain Pine Ridge. We paused periodically to admire the view:

From 2012-01-06

From 2012-01-06

Yes, that is the same Cockscomb we watched the sun set near from Maya Beach just last year:

From 2012-01-02

(Oops, Victoria Peak is not visible in this snapshot, but trust me, it was just out of frame to the right.)

We continued down the road, descending

From 2012-01-06

into the broadleaf forest of the upper Macal River valley:

From 2012-01-06

From 2012-01-06

until we were forced to park and walk

From 2012-01-06

to the bank of the river:

From 2012-01-06

Where Rhea took videos:

From 2012-01-06

From 2012-01-06

From the river bank, we ascended back up into the pine forest on the ridges.


Much of the tropical pine forest in the Mountain Pine Ridge area of the Maya Mountains was damaged by an outbreak of pine bark beetles in 2000-2001 (Report by U.S. National Public Radio, with 5' audio option, from August 3, 2001, is archived here: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/aug/beetles/beetles.html ; regional overview here: http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5507e/y5507e05.htm ).

This video clip by Rhea gives a sense of the roads through the pine forest:


With the deforestation caused by the beetles, much of the canopy was lost, letting sunlight to the forest floor and allowing a proliferation of herbaceous vegetation. This sometimes had to be cleared to allow passage:

and sometimes we used the powerful vehicle to push through:

We were of course navigating by GPS to wildlife camera trap locations on a grid. Since I described that in the previous blog entry, I won't bore you with that again.

I do want to talk about logging. Harvest of timber from tropical forests gets a bit of bad press from some parts of the conservation community. I'd like to share my perspective. I grew up in Oregon, where the wood products industry dominated the economy in the 20th century. The logging methods commonly used up there back then, clear cutting, devastated forests and the watersheds in them. The Northern Spotted Owl received the most international press coverage, but I was personally more impacted by the damage to salmon spawning beds. My father was a commercial salmon troller (sales pitch for his book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Fishing-Beyond-Buoys-Salmon-Trolling/dp/1878175041). The fishing industry was destroyed by the logging industry. So, I saw the environmental damage from poor forestry practices along with the economic benefits of the wood products industry to rural communities. Can forestry ever be practiced responsibly and sustainably?

I would like to share a few snapshots of what I believe is an example of responsible forest harvest in Belize. I know the name of the company, but am not sharing it here as I neglected to ask explicit permission to blog. If you are the owner, feel free to comment or to ask me to remove these photos.

Pine tree cut down in a selective logging operation:

From 2012-01-06

Log loading point:

From 2012-01-06

Note the small "footprint" relative to the scale of the operation!
Logger's forest camp:

From 2012-01-06

Again, this operation directly damaged very little land area relative to the amount of wood harvested. From an ecological standpoint, it reminded me of a large wind storm.  This selective harvesting had no resemblance to the clear-cut logging on steep slopes I saw routinely practiced in Oregon in the 1970s and 1980s.

From this place, we headed up higher and higher through beautiful terrain:

From 2012-01-06

to the highest places in the Mountain Pine Ridge:

From 2012-01-06

where only a few small trees grew:

From 2012-01-06

but many other interesting plants did:

From 2012-01-06

Hypercium:

From 2012-01-06

From 2012-01-06

and even Lycopodium, an ancient plant that in the tropics is found only at high elevations:

From 2012-01-06

Rhea of course took videos.

From 2012-01-06

From 2012-01-06

Here are a few:
Looking down from the pine forest we drove up from--

Looking out over the bald hills of Belize--

Watching the evening fog roll in over the Bald Hills of Belize--

Walking through the grasses on top of a bald hill--


I am saving the best for last. In this video clip, Rhea covers the landscape ecology of the area in just one minute. Amazing! If you watch only one of her videos, let it be this one:



We get up to Baldy Beacon itself

From 2012-01-06

as the sun is going down:

From 2012-01-06

It was a truly amazing day.