Foreword
Gary S. HartshornWhile serving as visiting faculty during the Organi-
zation for Tropical Studies' Fundamentals of Ecology
course in 1968,1 had the good fortune to join a small
group of naturalists on a day trip to Monteverde. As
we departed from La Pacifica, little did I know how
rough and wet that day would be. Under the leader-
ship of Jerry James, a resident of Monteverde who was
instrumental in discovering the stunning endemic
Golden Toad, we drove to his parents' farm and then
hiked the horse trail to the Continental Divide, where
we explored the gnarled elfin woodland. It was my
first, wonderful encounter with the Monteverde cloud
forest. Though lowland rain forest hecame the focus
of my own research, Monteverde was our family's
favorite escape from San Jose for some twenty years.
Over the past three decades, Monteverde has be-
come a world-famous destination for nature-loving
tourists. The prescient conservation efforts of the
Quaker pioneers to protect the upper watershed of
the Rio Guacimal, the impetus of Harriet and George
Powell to protect Golden Toad habitat, and the early
involvement of the Tropical Science Center, together
with the collaboration of many individuals and orga-
nizations, have combined to form a world-class con-
servation area in the Tilaran Mountains. Less well
known is that the Monteverde forests have been the
focus of considerable research by field biologists.
Despite the lack of a research-oriented "field sta-
tion," locally focused scientific library, equipped
laboratories, and core funding for research, Monte-
verde has attracted numerous researchers, many of
whom continue to conduct research over the long
term. Without a central focus on research such as that
of Costa Rica's La Selva Biological Station, Panama's
Barro Colorado Island, or Cocha Cashu in the Peru-
vian Amazon, it is truly remarkable what the editors
of and contributors to this book have accomplished
with this publication. They have successfully pulled
together in one volume virtually all that is known
about the habitats and species of Monteverde.
In addition to the standard overviews of the physi-
cal setting, fauna and flora, and their ecological inter-
actions, this book is exceptional in its substantive
treatment of the role of humans—negative as well as
positive—in the Monteverde ecosystems. I can think
of no more central theme that characterizes Monte-
verde than the awareness and involvement of humans
in the ecology and conservation of these exceptional