Costa Rica is widely regarded as a global leader in conservation practices. In the Maquenque National Wildlife Refuge (MNWLR), within Costa Rica’s Northern Zone, a strong commitment to conservation has led to protecting highly biodiverse mature forests. However, a significant opportunity to strengthen conservation in this region is being overlooked at a great cost to the local community and environment: the protection of regenerating secondary forests. Secondary forests account for over 50% of global tropical forests and serve vital ecological and cultural functions. Within the MNWLR, many species in the secondary forests provide medicinal value to the rural communities where western medical care is difficult to access. Recent research, however, has shown that secondary forests in Costa Rica are re-cleared within 20 years, before they have accumulated the previously lost biomass and biodiversity. In this paper, we call for conservation and management strategies to incorporate community held knowledge about culturally significant species, and for there to be economic incentives for keeping secondary forests intact and for determining which forests are designated as Protected Areas. We discuss previous research with two trees that are common in secondary forests in the MNWLR (Vismia macrophylla and Pentaclethra macroloba), recognizing that these are some of the many species that have great potential to both the ecological and social communities. While our focus area is in the Northern Zone of Costa Rica, the integration of community use and local knowledge into conservation should be a global priority.

Increasingly, secondary forests in Costa Rica are cleared before having the decades needed to reach maturity. This paper investigates the medicinal and ecological value that a small community in Costa Rica's Northern Zone receives from regenerating secondary forests by presenting a case study of pioneer tree species Vismia macrophylla. Two expert healers within this community described V. macrophylla's antifungal properties; one further demonstrated its harvest, preparation, and application. To supplement local medicinal knowledge, we completed a gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis of V. macrophylla tissue. We found potential antibiotic efficacy, which we suggest is primarily linked to acetic acid, and identified hexanal, which is recognized as antifungal. We surveyed V. macrophylla demography and surrounding plant diversity in 20-50 m2 plots in the primary and secondary forests to better understand the ecological context in which it occurs. We found V. macrophylla grew taller and wider in secondary forests. Furthermore, plant diversity was similar between primary and secondary forest plots with V. macrophylla. Our findings highlight the value of secondary forests in providing medicinally important species, like V. macrophylla, to their neighboring communities as they undergo succession. Our study illustrates how interdisciplinary ethnographic, chemical, and ecological research can be used to promote the sustainable use and preservation of recovering secondary forests for the benefit of the communities they surround.

In the 1990s, the Maya-ICBG (International Cooperative Biodiversity Group) was one of the major bioprospecting projects in Chiapas, Mexico and was designed to incorporate traditional knowledge into pharmaceutical research. The researchers had hopes of benefiting Indigenous communities economically and technologically while conserving plants and traditional knowledge. Unfortunately, the project experienced local and international opposition who accused the project of exploiting Indigenous people and privatizing their knowledge. We present a teaching module in the form of an interrupted case study in which participants learn about the ethnobotanical study that shifted from one of promise to one of controversy. The history of the development of the case study over the past decade is told from both a faculty and a student perspective. The purpose of this perspective article and of our case study in general is to bring the conversation of ethics to the forefront of ethnobiology. Although the Maya-ICBG project was brought to a close in 2001, the case study is still relevant in both a historical context and as a means to discuss ethics and Prior Informed Consent.