Although the tropical rainforest only covers ~7% of the planet it is estimated to hold at least 50% of the world’s biodiversity. Of course, loss of rainforest is one of the critical issues of our time. Besides losing untold number of species to deforestation, we also lose the ecosystem services of these forests which include things like carbon sequestration, purified drinking water, and erosion control. People that live in tropical countries are starting to see the advantages of preserving their forests not only for the ecosystem, food, and resource benefits but for the economic benefits of things such as tourism. Costa Rica has been a model for rainforest preservation and in its small size has a wide variety of tropical forests.

This photo book documents a trip by thirteen students from SUNY Broome Community College and their instructors as part of a Tropical Ecology course. They examined the ecology of tropical forests and the impact of humans upon them. They visited many different forest ecosystems on the Caribbean and Pacific slopes as well as mountain top cloud forests. A definite highlight was be the two field stations in the 54,000 acre Children’s Eternal Rainforest.