Hearts of Palm
The El Yunque Rainforest in Puerto Rico is what is called an 'experimental national park.' It is the site of many ecological studies of flora and fauna, climate, and other environmentally based subjects.
It's amazing in its diversity - some plants grow so fast you can see the stalks moving upward. Others are so deeply rooted they've stood firm in the same place for decades. In the case of hearts of palm, a culinary delicacy, the root cannot be harvested until the tree in which it lives is felled, and at El Yunque that's always of natural causes.
The tiny island rainforest itself is also considered by experts to be the most fragile in the world.
But as John the English Guide told us earlier this week, its designation as experimental also opens El Yunque to testing of a less-than-ecological nature: in the 1940s, radio isotopes were released, as he put it, "to see what happened." Everything within a 30 mile radius died. In the sixties, Agent Orange was studied for the same reasons, with similar results.
The question that leaves in my mind is not a hard one to verbalize ... why would anyone take something green, something growing, something that has many a nook and cranny yet to be discovered and put it to the drastic test, just to see what happens?
Is it simply human nature to turn a blind eye to the potential implications?
It's my own nature to be adventurous, and both travel and writing are outlets in which I get to leap head first into the unknown regularly. But travel and writing aren't the only parts of my life, and sometimes I wish I thought a little longer about the proverbial rainforest, and how living with a proverbial machete in my left hand is not always the best idea. Sometimes I wish I could take what I am given more often, and walk away happy.
I take risks in my career and I rarely regret them. I hop on planes without looking back and I always love where I land. But like everyone else, sometimes I take a leap of faith, and I get really, really scared.
I'm still learning to let the palm tree fall on its own. Because wherever and whenever it falls, that's what's supposed to happen.
It's a hard lesson.
Photos from the Beat
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