“It is an honor for me to be in a forest, in a place that was once desert,” said the first vice president, who is a leading Costa Rican environmentalist and scientist with vast experience in agronomy and education. “Certainly it behaves like a desert, so that planting so many millions of trees here is a gift that only you know how to do.”
The vice president was so impressed by KKL-JNF's work in afforestation that he announced that he would personally try to obtain some seeds of the rare Guayacan Real tree and transfer them to KKL-JNF in cooperation with the Israeli ambassador to Costa Rica. The Guayacan Real grows only in one specific region of Costa Rica, in conditions similar to those found at the planting center in the Judean hills, Dr. Mesen said. There are only 300 such trees remaining in the whole world.
Read more at the KKL-JNF site