In a world besieged with the awesome dilemmas
that an exploding population and the inherent (and
peculiarly human) abuse of its natural resources
pose, Monteverde, like other protected areas, takes
an added luster of hope. And the emblematic color
of hope is the same as that of the canopies: green.
Meetings, symposia, and summits seldom result
in timely actions. A new era begins for Monteverde
and its communities with the production by Nad-
karni and Wheelwright, the first a canopiologist
extraordinaire observing both the individual organ-
isms as well as the whole, and the second a distin-
guished population biologist placing the observa-
tions into the wider context of conservation and the
ecosystem, and in the perspective of the region and
the planet.
The stellar cast of scientists united under the
canopy of the Monteverdean forest share with us cur-
rent insights of that complex array of habitats and
their creatures, together setting a benchmark from
which to record the changes forthcoming, in their
beloved fields and forest, in the surrounding land-
scape and, one hopes, in the attitude of humankind.
This volume, however, comes with an implicit caveat
for these authors and those they will without doubt
inspire: it is just the cornerstone from which an edi-
fice of deeper and better understanding of this mag-
nificent site can grow.X Foreword