Y qué pasará con comunidades como Yorkin, cuando la tierra ya no hable cómo antes? What happens to communities like Yorkin when the land no longer speaks the way it used to?
The Bribri, among countless Indigenous groups worldwide, have long understood the land to be a living, spiritual entity rather than an exploitable resource. Their lifeways stand as a model for global communities to learn from and envision new paths forward. This essay investigates the ongoing impacts of climate change in Yorkin, community responses to these changes, and the wisdom to be learned from those at the front lines of the battle against global environmental change.
March was once a month of pure sun. It was the month of the bean, the seasonal indicator of Summer, an informal calendar date for which everyone prepared their fincas.
“Sabíamos que el verano en un mes iba a ser. En un mes sabíamos cuál es el verano y otro mes sabemos cuándo es la lluvia. Se sabía bien. Pero con el pasar de los años, vemos el cambio.” | “We knew that summer would come in a [certain] month. In any month, we knew when it was summer and when it would rain. We knew it well. But with the passing of the years, we see the change.” -Prisca Morales Rodriguez
Today in Yorkin, the remnants of any season are gone. Climatic fluctuations within the span of a day are enough to raise concern. September weather consisted of heat-packed mornings, replaced at midday with heavy clouds that rained down torrentially until the evening came. No one knew if they’d wake up to the rain or the sun first, but they knew that they would likely see both before day’s end.
“Un cambio distinto, como que yo digo que el sol se bajó, no sé qué pasó, pero dicen que es el cambio climático que dicen ahora está diferente. Yo digo que la naturaleza está como distorsionada. Ahora usted espera sol, es lluvia. Cuando usted espera lluvia, es sol. Todo está diferente.” | “A distinct change, I say its like the sun lowered, I don’t know what happened, but they say that it is [because of] climate change that now its different. I say that nature is distorted. Now, when you wait for sun, it rains. When you wait for rain, there’s sun. Everything is different.” -Dominga Morales Morales
The 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (hereafter IPCC) predicts higher temperatures and shifts in precipitation patterns as outcomes of climate change, and states that these will be responsible for the largest changes in tropical forest biomes.6 Yorkin provides an insider’s perspective to these impacts, and demonstrates the intense ramifications that many forest dwelling, Indigenous people are braving, despite having no role in the manifestation of climate change.
To an undiscerning eye, the implications of fluctuating precipitation patterns are hard to see, but it is specifically the extent and intensity of the rainfall that has become a large issue in the region. The rain comes down harder than ever before, and can endure for as little as minutes, or as long as days. Rice, corn, and beans are the three fundamental crops that this community has historically grown for subsistence, but when heavy rain falls sporadically during their growing season, the stalks of the rice and corn are damaged by the weight of the rain droplets, and much of the harvest is lost. The bean harvest is particularly sensitive to rain in its later stages of growth, and faces risk of germination if rain falls on the legumes too soon around their harvest time. Climatic and seasonal instability in Yorkin jeopardizes the community’s historical and ancestral practice of self sustenance. If these staple crops can no longer be reliably grown, residents will be forced to rely on imported food, increasing their need for income—a challenge that Yorkin’s subsistence-based community cannot easily or sustainably support. Despite these significant challenges, there are community members who are committed to growing their own food, no matter the scale of the challenge.
“My papa is 77 years old, and when we were kids, my father would harvest all of the food for us. The only things he would buy was the soap, the kerosene (for light) and salt. So my papa harvested everything, and he did it in large amounts. For the year. The next year he’d return to plant again. It was rice, corn and beans, the most that he planted. They were the three that we couldn’t lack in the house. Corn, rice and beans. But, now that we are in this year, 20 years ago, we started to see the problem that we had, because the rice that we harvested would sometimes seed. When the rice was like this (crooked) or it could be like this (other crooked), already painful to harvest, then the rain would come. And the rain would fall hard, so hard on the rice, and the rice would fall off. And when the rice falls, now you can’t harvest it. All of the seeds are going to be damaged. So depending on the luck of one’s run, if your rice is in the middle of that, you lose it. And with the corn is the same. The corn is bigger, the earth softens, and ravines sometimes form. The stock falls, all of it falls. Now you haven’t harvested anything. After, we have the bean that is the most delicate with the rain. The beans we harvest in March, and March was a month of pure sol. Now where we are, there are March’s that rain hard , and sometimes we are in a painful harvest. You know that we work with our hands, we don’t have machines or anything, so one goes one day, and you gather your harvest and if tomorrow the rain comes, to pain your beans. We can’t calculate if we are going to have a good harvest. Today it is what it is, to not lose our culture, we do a small amount to see if we can gather anything. Last year we planted beans, and we had to eat them germinated because the rain fell and they quickly germinated. We had to eat them like this to not lose them. And how are you going to save this, you can’t save this. And this is a month that definitely was a month for harvest, a month like March where there used to be a lot of sun. But the rain fell, and so there isn’t a fixed day like before that you can calculate. March is going to see sun, it’s not going to rain, that’s the day to harvest. Before, my father had all this, he knew in March there’d be sun, you had to harvest these, in August there are other varieties you have to harvest. Back then, there was no loss.” -Mirian Morales Marin
The intensity of the rainfall alone threatens the health of the environment in Yorkin, but when these conditions are immediately followed by sun exposure, the results are devastating.
“[Cuando] viene el sol en la mañana, viene la lluvia, con lo caliente y lo frío hay un choque, las matas se ponen amarillas, incluso algunos se mueren porque no soportan la calor con lo frío o lo frío con la calor. Y eso es con todas las plantas. Y si en banano es lo mismo, si hay una planta y tal vez está cerca de una humedad, lo caliente con lo frío, eso lo deja que muera. Y usted con el tiempo ve que las hojas se ponen como amarillas, es por el cambio climático”. | “[when] the sun comes in the morning, then comes the rain, with the heat and the cold there is a choking, the leaves turn yellow, some even die because they aren’t supported by the heat with the cold or the cold with the heat. And this is with all of the plants. With the banana it is the same, if there is a plant and maybe its close to a humid zone, the heat with the cold, this leaves it for dead. And in your time you’ll see that the leaves are turning yellow, its because of the changing climate.” -Prisca Morales Rodriguez
This combination of intense sun with heavy rain has created unstable growing conditions for all plants. As a result, high humidity from the heat and rain has promoted optimal growing conditions for fungal pathogens,7 threatening the yield of the dominant commercial crops in Yorkin, which in turn jeopardizes a major income source for many residents. Banana and Plantain crops are suffering from the Fusarium wilt and Black Sigatoka fungi, and Cacao trees battle a particularly devastating fungus known as Monilia. The spread of Monilia is of particular cultural and economic concern, as cacao holds both sacred and financial value in Yorkin, and is one of the only organic crops commercially exported from the community. In a case study focused on the spread of fungal pathogens in Yorkin, one farmer recalled harvesting 30-60 sacks of raw cacao on his 2 hectare farm prior to the arrival of monilia (approximately 1970). However, at the time of interview (2016), he was only able to harvest 2-8 sacks from the same area (1 sack=40kg).8
Unfortunately, the extent of climatic impacts do not end here. The traditional frond-based roofs on many of the houses in Yorkin have to be replaced twice as fast because of the force of the rain.
“La lluvia no era lo de hoy, la lluvia de antes era como sereno, no era como gotas. Entonces nuestras casas resistía eso, las casas de hojas de la suita hoy no resisten el 20 años duraba una casa para moverle la suita, hoy solo 8 años se tiene que moverlo porque ya le entra agua, porque la gota de la lluvia es muy pesado y lo rompe.” | “Today the rain is not what it used to be, the rain before was serene, not like large droplets. So our houses were able to resist this, our houses of leaves today cannot resist the 20 years they used to. Today they only last 8 years before you have to move them because already they let water enter, because the droplets of the rain are so heavy and they break the roofs.” -Bernarda Morales Marin
In addition to this, stronger, more frequent rain storms are increasing the risk of floods. Flooding is expected to increase worldwide due to climate change, and flood risk will be exacerbated by an anticipated increase in rainfall and intense storms in Costa Rica’s Caribbean region.9
Yorkin sits between two highland-based rivers: the Yorkin and the Tscui river. In 2008, the Yorkin river flooded the community and devastated the majority of the land.
“Aquí hubo una inundación muy grande, hace unos años que esa inundación fue como en el 2008, 2009, que quedó todo devastado, los ríos arrasaron con todos árboles y todo eso fue aquí en la plaza, usted ve la casa que está aquí en la Palma, el río llegó a la pata de esa casa, usted se paraba y no quedó árbol por la ribera del río. Y en ese tiempo ninguna organización vino a ver aquí qué pasó con el río y ahí salió STIBRAWPA, ya existía para ese tiempo, se dedicó a sembrar árboles otra vez por toda la ribera del río.” | “Here there was a very large flood, its been some years since this flood came, it was in 2008 or 2009. It left everything devastated, the rivers ravaged all of the trees and all of this came here to the plaza. You see the house here where the palm tree is, the river came to the footsteps of this house. No trees were left on the riverbanks of the rivers. And in this time not a single organization came to see what happened here with the river, but in came STIBRAWPA, it already existed in this time, and they dedicated themselves to planting trees again all along the riverbank.”
-Saolin Morales Morales
The intensity of rainfall immediately evokes a sense of nervousness and stress in Yorkin residents when it persists for hours at a time. In addition to this, Yorkin has become quiet– too quiet. This town exists in a part of the world separated from paved roads, electrical lines and lamp posts, from heated water and gas-powered stoves, and is nearly devoid of motor vehicles, yet the surrounding forest is still. The nation of Costa Rica comprises only 0.03% of the Earth’s land, but holds 5% of the world’s biodiversity. Standing in Yorkin, one would expect a riot of sound from the birds, insects and animals, but instead, there is only silence.
It wasn’t always like this. The loss of animal presence in this community has surprised many, and the driving forces of this change are multifaceted.
“Anteriormente habían muchos animales, aunque hoy en día no se. No se ve muchos animales. ¿Qué pasó? No sé, tal vez están más arriba en la montaña, porque allá arriba tenemos el parque cerquita, el parque internacional que tenemos entre Panamá y Costa Rica. Ahí se ve bonita. Entonces en ese parque hay de todos animales. ¿Entonces como nosotros estamos acá, para qué van a venir? Si ahí tienen esta gran casa de ellos.” | “There were many animals before, but today I don’t know. You don’t see many animals. What happened? I don’t know, maybe they are higher in the mountain, because up there we have the park nearby, the international park between Panama and Costa Rica. Up there is it so beautiful. In that park there are all types of animals. So if we’re down here, why would they come? If up there they have their grand house.” -Mirian Morales Marin
This description of upward movement aligns with the predictions of the 2011 Costa Rica Climate Risk Assessment, which states, “as temperatures rise, various ecosystems will migrate upslope to where they are comfortable, disturbing other species and eventually running out of space as they reach the top of the mountains. The result may be losses of many species that are unable to survive the new conditions”10. However, another element that is either driving species upwards, or reducing their numbers, is the rain.
“[Antes, yo] vi animales por montones, aves por montones. Ahora ya no se ve muchas aves, porque? porque llueve demasiado. Tal vez a la hora que ellos van a reproducirse tal vez cuando están en huevos como las aves, entonces se pudren, ya no nacen. ¿Por qué? Porque hoy llueve a la hora que le entra la gana de llover. El día que las aves están poniendo [huevos], no hay lluvia seca. Por ejemplo en Marzo o en Abril más o menos están las aves ya naciendo. Ahora no, en Marzo llueve una lluvia y se pierden los huevos de los animales.” | “Before, I would see animals for miles, birds for miles. Now you don’t see many birds, why? Because it rains too much. It could be that during their reproduction time, when the birds have laid their eggs, they don’t hatch. Why? Because today it rains like no other rain. The day that the birds are laying their eggs there is no longer dry (calm) rain. For example in March or April more or less the birds are already hatching. Now no, in March it rains so hard and we are losing the eggs of the animals.” -Bernarda Morales Marin
These reproductive losses from the intensity of rainfall may indicate the beginning of biodiversity decline, which is another predicted impact of climate change for tropical forests6. “While forest loss and degradation have been the main cause of tropical biodiversity loss in the past, climate change now arises as a major threat not only for individual tropical forest species or taxa, but for whole communities, and even entire tropical forest ecoregions”6. While the exact causes behind the loss of biodiversity presence in this region are not confirmed, these circumstances foreshadow an unprecedented and ominous reality for Yorkin, and many other communities.
The biophysical impacts of the climatic changes that Yorkin is experiencing unveil only a fraction of the damages felt by this community. Shedding light on the visible and quantifiable impacts of these changes is an important first step to understanding others’ realities, but the cultural, psychological, and spiritual implications have yet to be considered, and the industries and governments responsible for these impacts have yet to remediate them. Yorkin is one of thousands of communities that are being disproportionately affected by the first shockwaves of climate change, even though they are faultless in it. These very communities are the most well-positioned to advocate for relevant, actionable change, but they are deliberately excluded from conversations around remediation. According to Byskov & Hyams (2022), “local stakeholders, such as Indigenous communities, possess in-depth experiential knowledge about the local environment and socio economic norms that are essential for the success of climate adaptation initiatives,” yet there is a gross underrepresentation of Indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation planning11. The changes required to halt climate change, alongside the other numerous and devastating repercussions of our global capitalistic frameworks, lie in the hands of us as a collective. The systems upheld by our governance structures have not only failed Indigenous peoples, they’ve failed all life12. As Yorkin and other communities grapple with these changes, it is increasingly critical to abolish the systems in place that perpetuate violence and inequity to all living forms, and reconstruct them under the frameworks that Indigenous communities have practiced and thrived under for millenia: balance, reciprocity, and respect for nature must replace current, colonial views of ki13 being a commodity, resource, or financial opportunity12 . The changes necessary will require intense transformation, but they are not impossible, especially if communities like Yorkin guide the way. Indigenous peoples around the world already practice established social and legal traditions that naturally reflect a sustainable relationship with nature12. Recognizing these systems and traditions as an opportunity for improvement will be critical for building a future that preserves the world ecologically, ethically, and equitably.
Phases and Faces of Change | Fases y caras de Cambio 