Have you ever wondered how we could ever restore land, and how to make it fertile again? Look no further than this fascinating idea an orange juice company had in Costa Rica! Approximately 1000 truckloads of orange peels (about 12000 tons) were dropped off in a national park.
The hope of the University of Pennsylvania conservationists was to partner with local orange juice producer Del Oro to safely get rid of compostable waste in the conservation area (which was 3 hectares). Though this had many concerned, including a competing company who claimed Del Oro had “desecrated a national park”. The peels had begun to break down, creating a thick black loamy soil that did not look appealing to the civilians. Del Oro lost this legal battle and had to leave the land alone.
Though, to everyone’s surprise 16 years later the once barren land had transformed into a lush forest. With reports of a 176% increase in above-ground biomass, the ground was fertilized well and allowed the seeds underneath a chance to grow with the nutrients the orange peels provided. The soil had turned rich, there was more diversity in the trees with many trees that had disappeared in the area returning. Before there was 23 plant species, however after this experiment 123 plant species were found. Meaning 100 species were recovered. There was a clear difference between the orange peel site and the non-orange peel site. This is a win for conservation as it showed that forest regeneration was possible for a low cost and the difference can be seen within a relatively short amount of time. The Costa Rican forest shows that it’s “Bitter Late Than Never” to bring back our forests.
Treuer, Choi, J. J., Janzen, D. H., Hallwachs, W., Peréz‐Aviles, D., Dobson, A. P., Powers, J. S., Shanks, L. C., Werden, L. K., & Wilcove, D. S. (2018). Low‐cost agricultural waste accelerates tropical forest regeneration. Restoration Ecology, 26(2), 275–283. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12565
The Trustees of Princeton University. (n.d.). Orange is the new green: How orange peels revived a Costa Rican forest. Princeton University. Retrieved February 26, 2022, from https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/08/22/orange-new-green-how-orange-peels-revived-costa-rican-forest
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 