The Osa Peninsula is known as the home to 2.5% of earth biodiversity, the animal part of which comes together in annual meetings of the Osa General Assembly of all Animals at the center of Corcovado National Part. You can imagine how chaotic these meetings are and how hard it is to let everybody from the jaguar to the tinies ant say their opinion on the current’s trends of forest conservation and animal wellbeing, over the constant tweets of birds in the background. Obviously, like in the United Nations General Assembly, during hours long discussions, it often happens that voting blocks are formed and that some animals, driven by their own political interests, strive to maintain their position of power through manipulative roaring and briberies under the leaves. This story reports the events during and following the annual meeting of the Osa General Assembly of all Animals council for the year 2020, a special year for humans, animals, and viruses. The meeting that year was held by the small waterfall and like any year it started later than usual, because of late comings toucans too busy fighting for other birds’ eggs. Once something resembling silence was brought to the area by the harsh screaming of a cloud of macaws, the jaguars, permanent members of the higher council along with the peccaries, the hummingbirds and the terciopelos, started their usual opening speech and presented the current trends of ecosystem well-being. The results, put together by a hardworking group of researcher ants able to carry information ten-times heavier than their weights, presented by the first jaguar did not seem as bad as one might expected. Jaguar population as well as peccaries’ population was going according to the fluctuations observed in the past, with no hint to a future decrease.
The second jaguar was not as positive about the statistics, and as more jaguars spoke the data gathered became more blurry and harder to analyze. Once the turn of the peccaries came, they were so worried about how many jaguars were left to hunt them, that they could not really present any of their requests and needs. The terciopelos, speaking in name of the viper species of the peninsula, tired of being feared of, asked for policies to be put in place so that they could reestablish their reputation. To do so, they requested their data to be taken and presented as much as those of the jaguars and the peccaries. At the turn of the hummingbirds, the assembly had already turned into a mess of sounds and grunts that there was no chance any animal would be listening to the frantic singing of those rapid moving birds. Animals started instead to argue with each other over their apparently differing interests, such as protecting a particular tree species, having off-limits circulation in an area of the Peninsula, or prohibiting hunting of their juveniles. Like every year, like every meeting, the attempt to organize, cooperate and harmoniously manage the forest of the Osa Peninsula ended faster than it took the animals to reach the waterfall. An outsider might have thought it was stupid that it was so difficult for all those species to find an accord on forest conservation and sustainable living when all of them had the same common goal of leaving the tropical rainforest as biodiverse and abundant for the generations to come. Such an outsider was the Harpy eagle, unspotted by humans for many years, this incredibly majestic raptor had eventually come to have the role of an omniscient guardian of the rainforest. Be it the decreased number of external visits of humans inside the park, or its own understanding that something had to be done to stop the depressing inability of animals to come together and restore the earth; for the first time ever in 2020, the Harpy Eagle decided to decent all the way to the waterfall and assist the Osa General Assembly of all Animals. The eagle came out slowly, lurking from a big ceiba and, inevitably, as it spoke, nobody knew what kind of creature had produced that sound. Thousands of scared eyes started looking up and around to spot the goddess-like creature that had produced such surreal sound. When they saw it, their fear turned into a silent surprise and wonder. So, with not an instant of hesitation, the eagle spoke:
’ Dear animals of the Osa, for the past years very few of you have seen me flying around those forests. I did not like to make myself seen but I was observing how the parts of the forest were restored through conservation projects and law enforcements. I am here to share my thoughts with you on how we can hope to maintain the biodiversity we have been long part of. We have strict laws, but to help them be followed we need to cooperate with the human rangers more. They are guardians of the forests as much as we are and dedicate their life for it, but because of the scarcity of financial resources our government is facing, they are too few. I believe we can play an important role as helpers and watchers of the hidden path of the parks. I have furthermore seen that there is often both within us and within human’s confusion regarding data and monitoring. We cannot leave the work of collecting, cleaning, and analyzing information in the only hands of ants. With this, I do not mean to disrespect or denigrate the precise work of our little friends, but rather to highlight the importance of sharing knowledge and skills to obtain a clearer and more holistic view on the past, present, and future of our homeland. I furthermore have observed the importance of dialogue and collaborations between different species, based on the recognition of our common goal of sustainability and community wellbeing. We need to stop putting our personal political interests first if we wish to survive as unity earth. In this regard, I would like to propose that the council may not be composed by permanent members but that members might change, to truly give opportunity to all species to be represented and listened to. The diversity we embody is not merely biological, but it is a diversity of views, perceptions, and insights, which are all extremely important and valuable when we must solve problems we have never faced before. I leave you with this, sure that by tomorrow you will have taken a decision in your hearts and minds on which is the right way to proceed, the status quo or the internal shift!’.
As silent as it had come, the Harpy eagle flew away, leaving the assembly in complete silence once again. This silence did not last as long and slowly all kind of animals started to speak softly and comment on what they had heard. The jaguars were the first to speak loudly once again, trying to convince everybody about the insanity of changing the structure of the council. What would river flies have to say when their turn came as permanent members? What would sloths do, so lazy as they were? But unexpectedly, regardless of how hard they tried, the jaguars could not convince more animals than just half of their population, which was probably not even half, given the fact that the exact number of jaguars was unknown. Touched by the fierce and truth carrying words of the Eagle, the animals embraced a renewed sense of harmony and decided to follow the recommendations the eagle had given. It was the first time in the history of recorded Osa General assembly of all Animals that the meeting actually looked like a constructive and participatory coming together of ideas and solutions, rather than a messed-up clusters of personal interests.
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