Local man aims to save rain forest; Foundation protects jungle in Costa Rica
Copyright 2001 The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 30, 2001
By Steve La Rue; STAFF WRITER
It's a long way from the ocean shore of Southern California to the depths of Central America's endangered rain forest, but it's a mental journey that absorbed two men as they strolled on Moonlight Beach in Encinitas in 1997.
Most people come away from the beach with sunburns and sand in their shoes. Local businessman Steve Blumkin and his college friend, Tucson attorney Ron Lehman, came away with an idea for an environmental foundation that is helping to save a critical area of Costa Rica's rain forests from loggers and land speculators.
The two men formed the nonprofit O(2) for Life Foundation in order to protect about 500 acres of rain forest Blumkin purchased in Costa Rica in the late 1970s, along with several hundred acres of pristine jungle he manages near the site.
"There are a lot of bad things going on. This is a good thing," said Blumkin, co-owner of Outrageous Rugs on Miramar Road. "There are future medicines to be discovered there. If areas like this are protected, answers that may be there in the jungle will still be there when we can find and understand them. And, deforestation is a critical worldwide problem."
O(2) is the chemical notation for oxygen. The foundation is expanding its role in the fight to save the rain forest with the making of a documentary film that will be used for fund raising.
The foundation also is developing a Web site at http://www.o2forlife.org to describe the rain forest in Costa Rica and its biological value.
Blumkin, a Nebraska native, didn't think of himself as an environmentalist in 1977, when he drove to Costa Rica as a recent graduate from the University of Arizona. He owned and ran a coffee plantation for 2 1/2 years near Costa Rica's border with Panama.
His environmental awakening occurred when he visited the pristine, coastal jungle opposite the biologically rich Osa Peninsula.
There, he said, the jungle enveloped him with its moist, verdant growth, waterfalls, howling monkeys, parrots and large-beaked toucans.
"It really is a magical place. The place is so alive and so beautiful. I realized this was something special," he said.
Serendipity also played a role in converting Blumkin into an environmental steward.
He made an offer to buy this magical 500 acres of jungle, though he had little cash. When he returned to his plantation, a visitor from San Francisco arrived unexpectedly with an offer to buy his coffee plantation. Blumkin accepted.
"I felt that God kind of gave me a special set of keys and that maybe I was supposed to watch over this property," he said.
Blumkin and his first wife lived in the jungle. And their twin boys, Baba and Juan, were born there 23 years ago. Both now attend college in San Diego County.
"My children were born in that place, and I am connected to it," he said.
Blumkin visits the property twice a year. The foundation employs Costa Ricans to protect the land from encroachment by hunters and people seeking to cut trees or build homes in the jungle.
After that 1997 Encinitas beach walk, Ron Lehman, Blumkin's friend from the University of Arizona, became general counsel for the O(2) For Life Foundation, and Blumkin deeded his 500 acres of jungle to the nonprofit.
"I have always been an environmentalist," Lehman said. As deputy Pima County attorney, he initiated legal actions to save native Arizona cactus species and to enforce air pollution laws. Lehman said he frequently visits San Diego to enjoy its beaches and other amenities.
Blumkin and Lehman's lucky and largely unplanned meeting with one of Costa Rica's most famous naturalists last July prompted them to commit their foundation to rain forest conservation on a larger scale.
The man they met was Alvaro Ugalde, whom Time Magazine named one of the environmental leaders of the century for his 30-year effort to prevent thousands of square miles of Costa Rican rain forest from being logged and developed.
In a telephone interview, Ugalde applauded the preservation efforts of the O(2) For Life Foundation because the jungle it is protecting is part of a key crescent of jungle habitat that he said must be preserved.
It is part of a habitat bridge that is needed to connect the 120,000-acre Corcovado National Park, located on the Osa Peninsula, and the roughly 30,000-acre Piedras Blancas National Park, located in the Esquinas Rain Forest near the foundation's property.
"The forests between the two parks are being logged, and the parks are being fragmented from other habitat lands," said Ugalde, who has twice served as director of Costa Rica's national parks.
Costa Rica's better known national parks, to the north and east, draw more than $700 million in eco-tourism revenue to the nation each year. Corcovado and Piedras Blancas remain remote to eco-tourists, Ugalde said, but they could also become a magnet if they were linked.
If the jungle forests between the two parks are not preserved, Ugalde said, five cat species including the jaguar and the ocelot -- which need more hunting range than either of the national parks provides -- will no longer have enough habitat to survive in that area.
Other species that need the habitat, he said, include tapirs, harpie eagles and four species of monkeys, including howling and spider monkeys.
About 50,000 to 100,000 acres of habitat lands must be saved to link these two national parks and save these species, Ugalde said, but it is difficult to estimate the cost of doing this because many landowners can be persuaded to save the habitat on their lands.
"We are going to make it possible for people to make a living by preserving their property," he said. For example, low-impact eco-tourism development could earn revenue from international tourists interested in hiking and boating in the rain forest, he said.
Even so, Ugalde said, about $10 million is needed to buy 15,000 acres of jungle that is needed to complete Piedras Blancas National Park. That is where O(2) for Life Foundation will be taking an expanded role.
Blumkin plans to take a film crew to Costa Rica this fall to document Ugalde's work as well as the biological value of the needed jungle habitat. He said the film will be shown to philanthropists and foundations and could be later seen as a documentary.
"The goals of Alvarado Ugalde's foundation are very much aligned with the goals of our foundation," said Lehman.
Ugalde, who is chief environmental officer at his Foundation for U.S.-Costa Rica Cooperation (http://www.crusa.or.cr), will be approaching other foundations and philanthropists worldwide for help in saving this forest. Blumkin's film will be part of this effort.
Ugalde said loss of the jungle between the two parks also could erode a larger ecosystem in Central America.
"This part of Costa Rica is immersed in a larger ecological region that goes from southern Mexico to Columbia and has about 10 percent of the planet's biodiversity," he said.
"Costa Rica alone has 5 to 6 percent of the world's species, and the forests around the Osa Peninsula contain about 5 percent of Costa Rica's biodiversity."