By Justine Calma , a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hel

They turned cattle ranches into tropical forest — then climate change hit

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2024-04-27 17:00:03

By Justine Calma , a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.

Ecologist Daniel Janzen wades into the field, clutching a walking stick in one hand and a fist full of towering green blades of grass in the other to steady himself. Winnie Hallwachs, also an ecologist and Janzen’s wife, watches him closely, carrying a hat that she hands to him once he stops to explain our whereabouts.

Together with other conservationists who have dedicated decades of their lives to this place, the couple has brought forests back to the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). It’s an astonishing 163,000 hectares of protected landscapes — an area larger than the Hawaiian island of Oahu — where forests have reclaimed farmland in Costa Rica.

The grass isn’t supposed to be here. Janzen and Hallwachs only keep this small field around as a reminder of — and to show visitors like me — how far they’ve come since the 1970s, when pastures and ranches still dominated much of the landscape.