Foreword
Luis Diego Gomez P.Canopium is a word from Medieval Latin meaning "a
tent," a shelter under which things and people come
together. By extension, canopium, canopy, has be-
come the term of choice for the crowns of trees, un-
der which blossoms, climbers, epiphytes, birds, and
other winged and furried creatures find and make
a habitat. I believe it was in this sense that the word
was introduced into the nascent ecological lexicon by
Eugene Warming at the beginning of the twentieth
century.
This insignificant historical factoid suddenly be-
came very meaningful to me when I examined this
volume. Its covers are a canopy under which many
valuable things come to fruition, the most important
of which is the sense of fullness of knowledge har-
vested from one of the natural jewels of Costa Rica:
Monteverde, a proverbial cloud forest, a crown in the
Guanacaste-Tilaran Range, itself a canopium for a
rich biodiversity and a rich tradition for conserva-
tion. In fact, Monteverde was the earliest structured
project planned and aimed at the preservation of an
ecosystem in this country of ours.
The process of habitat and ecosystem conservation
has been a slow and difficult one in the neotropics,
but Monteverde was blessed by its isolation, abetted
by its early settlers who took only what was needed
and respected the rest, a site that was instantly iden-
tified as unique in the exuberance of its nature, and
beloved by all, scientists and nature gazers alike. The
importance of Monteverde as a role model in the en-
vironmental movement of Costa Rica cannot be over-
stated. It is a living example of what could and should
be done and what was done at the right time. Some
may say that the original idea of the Monteverde Pre-
serve has somewhat deviated over the years, and they
may be somewhat right. But change is, precisely, the
engine of nature and the very nature of ecological
studies.
With the rich documentation that the editors of this
volume regale us, the importance of Monteverde in-
creases exponentially because it sets an example of
what should be done for many other areas. These
chapters reveal the intricate machinery that generates
the pulse and forms the characteristics of the cloud
forest environments. Even if it were a mere glimpse
into the complexity of the cloud forest, this book
would amply serve the purpose and compensate the
extraordinary effort of the editors.