Platanera Rio Sixaola: Measuring impact in aquatic ecosystems with bioindicators

If we are to truly transition to sustainable food and farming systems, we need to measure our impact.

Rivers are ecosystems that are strongly influenced by their surroundings, and river ecologists have long recognized that rivers and streams are influenced by the landscapes through which they flow. Thus, one way of measuring the impact that our operations are having in the environment is by looking at the ecological health of the rivers and streams that flow through our farms.

Unlike physicochemical analyses, which reflect the condition of the water at the time of sampling (similar to a photograph), biological indicators like fish assemblage, macroinvertebrate benthic community, and condition of the physical habitat, respond to longer term environmental conditions integrating ecological information over time.

Sixaola River flowing through the PRS farm

The Sand Box River is a tributary of the Sixaola River basin and flows through the western edge of our farm Platanera Rio Sixaola in Costa Rica. This river is in a hotspot of endemism for freshwater fish in the country, so its management is critical for the conservation of the unique aquatic biodiversity of the country. As responsible stewards of the land, we deeply care about how our practices are influencing this important river. Monitoring and interpreting bioindicators require scientific expertise and skills, so we partnered with the River Biomonitoring Program of the ANAI Association from Costa Rica to conduct a relevant study.

They found out that the river is habitat for five freshwater species endemic to the South Caribbean, all listed as Endangered, according to IUCN’s Red List (2020). Furthermore, they Identified the presence of four species that need to migrate between fresh and brackish watersto complete their life cycle. The presence of migratory species indicate that rivers are freely connected to the sea and maintain good characteristics of habitat and forested riparian zones. Platanera Rio Sixaola is constantly working on Improving the water quality through sustainable agriculture practices and to minimize the disturbance of the area adjacent to the river as much as possible.

Watch our biodiversity video

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This article is an extract of the 2022 12Tree Sustainability Report. Download the report to learn more about our regenerative approach to farming illustrated in several farm case studies, articles and partner interviews.

Maquencal: From conventional monoculture to sustainable agroforestry

Maquencal is located in one of the world’s ecosystems with the highest priorities for conservation: the tropical dry forest.

Dry forests have been the preferred zones for agriculture and human settlement in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and South America and are amongst the most heavily utilized, perturbed, and least conserved of the large tropical ecosystems. With so little of its area intact and even less protected, the tropical dry forest ecosystem is currently one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world. In Colombia, 92% of its original cover has been lost and only 5% of what remains is under protection. This ecosystem is home to important species such as the cotton top-tamarin, an endemic Colombian primate, and the redlegged tinamou, a threatened species in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

When 12Tree acquired Maquencal in 2018, the farm was a cacao monoculture with low productivity levels and high pest incidence. To restore the productivity of the farm while providing habitat for biodiversity right from the start, the objective has been to rehabilitate the land in ways that enhance the richness of biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance resilience to climate change. In short, moving from nature-negative to nature-positive farming.

Pollinators are an important element of crop associated biodiversity

To start, existing areas of naturally regenerated forest and gallery forests within the farm were protected and excluded from agricultural production. In terms of farm productivity, maintaining these habitats is key to boosting crop pollination and natural pest control because they provide food and nesting areas for pollinating and beneficial predatory insects. At the landscape level, these areas are extremely important for encouraging the movement of forest organisms (primates, mamals, birds, etc.) among the remaining patches of natural vegetation.

Recognizing the challenging weather and soil conditions of the site (a 4-month dry period, sandy soils with poor structure and organic matter content), it was necessary to redesign the agroecosystem so that it functioned on the basis of a new set of ecological processes. Nitrogenfixing cover crops native to the area were identified and are being planted below the canopy of the cacao trees to jumpstart natural processes of soil restoration. This reintroduction of diversity through cover crops provides a proactive approach to farm management: focusing on preventing problems before they occur, rather than trying to control them after they happen. Among the many other benefits, cover crops suppress weeds and thus reduce the need for herbicides, while at the same time helping to attract beneficial species and thereby reducing the need for pesticides and chemical inputs.

When analyzing the effect that these practices have at the landscape level, today Maquencal is a more biodiversity friendly agroecosystem in the sense that it facilitates interpatch migration. For example, this cacao plantation may not provide the appropriate habitat for a particular orchid species, but it does provide a habitat that will allow the movement of pollinating euglossine bees, effectively facilitating the mixing of genes between patches of appropriate habitat in the landscape.

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This article is an extract of the 2022 12Tree Sustainability Report. Download the report to learn more about our regenerative approach to farming illustrated in several farm case studies, articles and partner interviews.

Our Biodiversity

#WEVALUENATURE

Today, biodiversity and agriculture are at odds with one another in several ways.

About half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture and thus agriculture production is largely responsible for deforestation and the loss of other valuable habitats such as wetlands and grasslands. As a result, food production is responsible for the majority of global biodiversity loss - including as much as 70% of terrestrial biodiversity loss. At the same time food production highly depends on well-functioning ecosystems. Nature provides numerous ecosystem services - such as fertile soils, food, natural remedies, drinking water, and clean air – which in turn regulate the climate. If ecosystems or their components are damaged in the long term, the services provided by nature are at risk.

Despite this reality, only recently have science and industry begun to practically consider the role that large scale agriculture can play in restoring biodiversity. Prior approaches to integrate the two typically promoted conservation set-asides adjacent to agricultural and forestry developments. But the conservation paradigm that focuses on setting aside pristine forests while ignoring the agricultural landscape is a failed strategy in light of what is now conventional wisdom in ecology. Some habitats like tropical forests harbor great biodiversity, others, like agricultural systems, less. But in the fragmented landscapes that characterize almost all of the world’s terrestrial surface, those habitats that are biodiversity “poor,” may be extremely important as passageways for the habitats that are biodiversity “rich.” Given the fragmented nature of most tropical ecosystems, agricultural landscapes need to be an essential component of any conservation strategy. Transforming our agricultural systems into biodiverse agricultural landscapes is therefore key to reducing biodiversity loss, mitigating climate change, and ensuring human welfare as it relates to the most basic rights of clean air and water and nutritious food. Hence, our ability to achieve the SDGs will hinge on the protection and restoration of global biodiversity, from ending hunger (SDG 2), to clean water (SDG 6), to reduced inequality (SDG 10). But the process of transforming our food systems will require, as WWF eloquently puts it, a paradigm shift from intensive commodity production that tries to minimize the role of nature, to “farming with biodiversity to achieve nature- positive production at scale”.

Insect house at 12Tree farm Platanera Río Sixaola

12Tree’s farms are a living testament that large scale, profitable farming can be done in harmony with nature, and that regenerative agriculture can actively conserve and enhance biodiversity and other important ecosystem services. We have adopted a number of strategies to incrementally increase biodiversity on our farms. The most fundamental include practices like delineating and protecting conservation and restoration areas, and introducing multi-tiered, mixed varietals and crops into our productive systems.

12Tree’s farms are empirically proving that a collection of biological reserves in a sea of diverse agroecosystems managed regeneratively and with diverse vegetation cover is precisely the path forward for restoring global biodiversity through agriculture.

Watch our biodiversity video

DEFINITION: Agroecosystems are defined as communities of plants and animals interacting with their physical and chemical environments that have been modified by people to produce food, fibre, fuel and other products for human consumption and processing.

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This article is an extract of the 2022 12Tree Sustainability Report. Download the report to learn more about our regenerative approach to farming illustrated in several farm case studies, articles and partner interviews.