Living Fences in Costa Rica a growing idea
August 10, 2012 06:28 AM
Living Fences in Costa Rica a growing idea
Drive around Costa Rica’s windy mountainous roads and you will see numerous trees, from those bearing colorful fruits to others sporting thick spines, planted about 1 to 3 meters apart. Connected by long lines of barbed wire, these rudimentary-looking arrangements, known as living fences, have both economic and environmental benefits over their dead wood counterparts.
Farmers across Central America plant living fences because these green barriers are a more economically feasible and readily accessible method for containing livestock and protecting crops. For one, the main materials of living fences are the branches of tree species that root from sticks and grow into larger trees. Shared among neighbors or sold at local markets, these sticks are much cheaper and more common than manufactured posts. Without the need for paint or preservatives, which can add toxins into the environment, maintenance costs also remain low. Additionally, animals graze on living fences, saving farmers costs in livestock feed.
By providing some shade and serving as windbreaks, living fences can significantly decrease the amount of energy farm animals need to regulate their body temperatures. As livestock allot this extra energy to growth and, in dairy cows, producing milk, farmers experience higher yields, whether in meat or milk, for planting living fences.
These tree posts also offer farmers the additional benefits of firewood, timber, fruits, tanning astringents, and dyes. In Costa Rica, the federal government even provides payment for ecosystem services (PES) to farmers with living fences. A study on a region where a 2002 to 2007 World Bank project funded and monitored the building of living fences throughout Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Colombia, reports that small landholding producers rank the conversion of conventional fences into their living alternatives as a high priority.
More:
http://www.enn.com/sustainability/article/44786?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EnvironmentalNewsNetwork+%28Environmental+News+Network%29
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The first being a Jersey boy until 2005. We had the terror of multiflora rose. Heavily promoted as a living fence, the birds would eat the seeds and soon areas of rural NJ were turned into fields of unspeakable horror.
The other thought was of Aruba where I resided 2005 to 2010. Out in the cunucu (countryside) many properties had living fences made of cactus. Highly effective at keeping things in and keeping things out.
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