Conservation

They dumped 12,000 tons of orange peels in a national park: You won’t believe what it looks like 28 years later

A strange conservation plan in Costa Rica had hugely unexpected effects on the local area.

A strange conservation plan in Costa Rica had hugely unexpected effects on the local area.
Suzy Hazelwood (Pexels)(
Joe Brennan
Born in Leeds, Joe finished his Spanish degree in 2018 before becoming an English teacher to football (soccer) players and managers, as well as collaborating with various football media outlets in English and Spanish. He joined AS in 2022 and covers both the men’s and women’s game across Europe and beyond.
Update:

In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs hatched an unconventional restoration plan in Costa Rica. They partnered with a juice company, offering to donate some pristine land to the Área de Conservación Guanacaste if the company would transport and deposit its orange peel and pulp waste on an adjacent deforested pasture — all free of charge.

Beginning in 1998, approximately 1,000 truckloads (totalling over 12,000 metric tons) of sticky orange compost were dumped in the area. A sign was even installed to mark the site’s location for future research.

Stunning results from orange peel experiment

Returning with more precise directions, Treuer realised that this former wasteland had been radically transformed. Compared to a neighbouring barren site, the area had become a lush, thriving ecosystem: a vibrant new forest teeming with life.

“It was just hard to believe that the only difference between the two areas was a bunch of orange peels. They look like completely different ecosystems,” Treuer explained. While the areas surrounding the experiment were home to one type of tree, the deposit site featured two dozen species of vegetation.

The results were published in the journal Restoration Ecology: a “176 percent increase in aboveground biomass” was recorded “within the 3-hectare area (7 acres) studied.”

Along with the thriving plants, the researchers found a tayra (a dog-sized weasel) and a giant fig tree some three feet in diameter: “You could have had 20 people climbing in that tree at once and it would have supported the weight no problem. That thing was massive,” exclaimed Jon Choi, co-author of the paper.

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Next for the researchers is using this data to provide better information on waste management. “We don’t want companies to go out there willy-nilly just dumping their waste all over the place,” Treuer said. “But if it’s scientifically driven and restorationists are involved in addition to companies, this is something I think has really high potential.”

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