Using the Class of 1978 Foundation grant, I was able to travel to Panama and complete an 8-week reforestation internship with a non-profit reforestation and climate education organization called Fundación Pro Eco Azuero. As an incoming Princeton junior, I hadn’t known what to expect when I accepted the internship. I hoped to spend my summer doing something tangible, adventurous, helpful, and environmental, and Pro Eco checked all of the boxes. The internship surpassed all of these expectations and more.
For the duration of the internship, I lived in a rural town in the central, Azuero region of Panama called Pedasí. Along with two other Princeton interns and a graduate student intern from Italy, I was fortunate enough to join Pro Eco’s “Equipo Mono” or “Monkey Team.” The Equipo Mono was charged with the crucial project of restoring Azuero’s ecological corridor through reforestation and monitoring work. Through my work with the team, I learned that the region, which had once been largely composed of biodiverse rainforest, had been severely deforested in recent decades due to a combination of cattle ranching and tourist-related development. I was deeply impressed with Pro Eco’s organization structure, reforestation ethic, and theory of change. The organization understands that successful reforestation can only take place alongside strong community engagement and consultation. I got to see firsthand how Pro Eco employs local people, purchases its saplings from regional micro-producers who are predominantly women, educates Azuero’s youth about environmental issues, and partners with volunteers ranging from British and American high school students to local police officers and kindergarteners.
A day in the life as a Pro Eco intern was never dull. Each day, we awoke at the crack of dawn and piled into the pick-up truck (sometimes crammed between boxes of saplings), where we listened to popular Panamanian music and chatted about our evenings. I viewed these car rides as a Spanish bootcamp for myself. I had never studied Spanish in school, but I wanted to soak up as much as I possibly could in Panama, knowing how important Spanish can be for communicating with people, especially back in the U.S. Through these car conversations, I got to know my coworkers and picked up a good deal of Spanish, which I intend to continue practicing even now that I am home.
I got to experience three reforestation sites in my time as an intern – the first on an old cattle ranching farm in Pedasi, the second in the Cambutal mountains, and the third spread over a large property in Venao. Each of these locales came with their own unique sets of advantages and challenges. In Pedasi, the land was flat, but also hot and unshaded. My fellow interns and I oversaw organizing the British high school volunteers, instructing their planting and performing regular quality control checks of their work. Cambutal, on the other hand, was beautiful and shaded, but the terrain was steep and difficult – still, the capuchin monkeys we saw atop the mountain toward the end of the project made it all worth it. There, we helped out with American and British volunteers, and one day, a group of over 50 local school-children joined us to reforest. It was incredible to watch these young kids throw themselves into tree-planting with gusto, and to practice my Spanish with them by explaining the importance of reforestation work for the Azuero ecological corridor and carbon sink, and of course reminding them to drink plenty of water. Our final site, in Venao, seemed expansive and daunting at first, but with the help of Pro Eco’s summer reforestation team, known as the “magnificos” and more batches of American, British, and local volunteers, we managed to plant 1000-2000 trees each day. We also assisted with conducting a forest inventory of another property, tracking tree growth and biodiversity. Venao also offered the largest range of monkey sightings; there, we spotted capuchins, howlers, and even the evasive spider monkeys whose habitat we were trying to restore.
In addition to our daily planting, fertilizing, and monitoring work, my supervisor Sandra Vasquez often provided the interns with exciting opportunities outside of work. In our first month, she set up a ziplining adventure for us. Later in the summer, we joined the team to collect saplings from the local sapling micro-producers, loading the largest truck I had ever seen with thousands of plants, and keeping track of each species we acquired. After expressing interest in Pro Eco’s Eco Artisan program, Sandra made sure that we got to meet a group of artisans from the town of Paritilla. They welcomed us into their shop, explained their processes of transforming natural native plant species into works of art and practical wares, and even trained us in the practice of weaving cogollo fibers ourselves. Throughout the summer, we also had the chance to engage with the Pro Eco “Pelaos”, a group of local children Pro Eco teaches about environmental issues on Fridays. By week 7, my Spanish was comfortable enough to deliver a lesson about mangroves and their ability to protect coastal regions from the effects of climate disasters to the Pelaos, entirely in Spanish. We even got to visit the nearby Pablo Arturo Barrio Reserve, and we joined the climate disasters for the Pro Eco Pelaos, all in Spanish. We even got to visit the nearby Pablo Arturo Barrio Reserve to see mangroves in person. The following week, we were able to join the Pelaos once again for a wonderful and educational whale-watching expedition.
Through these incredible opportunities and our daily work, I feel that I meaningfully contributed to Pro Eco’s reforestation and environmental education missions, and that the organization meaningfully contributed to my personal growth and education in turn. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to get to know Pro Eco’s wonderful staff and will always remember the wisdom they shared with me about the native trees and plant species each day. Thanks to them, I can now tell the difference between a Calabazo and a Corotu, a Cedro Espino and a Guayacan, and I know to always avoid the painful Ortiga (a plant akin to stinging nettle).
I plan on bringing back all I learned from Pro Eco to Princeton’s campus this fall, and to carry it throughout the rest of my life. At Princeton, it can be all too easy to get swept up in the intense academic culture, but Pro Eco reminded me of the importance of localized ecological knowledge, physical connection to the land, and sometimes needing to get down on your knees and get dirty in order to truly be of help. Pro Eco helped me better understand that all climate work involves a careful balance. It involves advanced planning and thinking on your feet, strategic meetings and following through on your plans with physical labor, local consultation and constant communication. Over the course of my two months with Pro Eco, we managed to plant around 50,000 trees. I imagine I contributed around 4000 of those trees, a grain of sand in the scheme of things, but also an important segment of future forest.
On July 26, my last day of work, I felt a combination of deep satisfaction and sorrow as I planted my final tree. It was a Ceiba Pentandra, a sapling I had learned to recognize by its heartshaped leaves. As I scooped damp soil around the tree’s roots, packing it in tightly like tucking a child in for a nap, I thought about the broader significance of this single tree and how it might grow to contribute to the biodiverse ecosystem we were fostering. This Ceiba might grow to be 3 meters (10 feet) wide, just one tree in a vast forest that would emerge over the course of the next few decades. As I finished planting the Ceiba, I whispered a promise into its leaves that one day, I would return to see it.
I am so grateful for the Class of 1978 funding that allowed me to complete this internship and come away having learned an immeasurable amount. Thank you so much for making this possible for me.