This piece is written by Harry AKA Plant Boi, Instigator at PLANT GANG.
We are now at the end of our first week's adventure to bring nature on-chain and it was quite the ride…
Arrival to La Selva took us through the mountains from San Jose, while a storm passed through pelting us with rain as we headed for our home for the month. Our accommodation, the River Station site on the other side of the Puerto Viejo River was the founding location of the La Selva Research Station built in 1963. Our neighbors gave us a warm welcome and included bats in the roof, a wandering Great curassow, and a colossal golden orb weaver spider. Fortunately, the jaguar spotted in the area was yet to drop by.
Our first stroll into the field took us straight into dense green rainforest, where a constant chorus envelops you, as did the spider web I walked into a minute later. We carried on exploring, stopping what felt like every step to appreciate something new. Whether it be leaf-cutter ants carrying leaves five times their size to their fungal farms, or toucans flying between branches above, there was too much to see for one pair of eyes.
Fortunately we had two, as Steve, our Tech lead and photogrammetry expert, is focused on capturing these plant specimens in 3D, a novel technique for plant specimen collection.
Our next trek took us off the limited and thin concrete track surrounding the laboratories, onto muddy and challenging lands, where it was key to not let the incredible flora distract us too much from our foot placement. This paid off as we soon spotted a fer-de-lance snake right on our path. As one of the most deadly of Costa Rica’s snakes, we seemed to have jumped straight into the deep end, with this sobering encounter bringing an even greater level of respect to the fellow researchers out in the field every day risking their lives to collect important scientific data.
Many routes offered a grueling trek, forcing you through thin, loosely carved out paths of rainforest in the intense humidity and heat. On our second trek a huge tree had collapsed over our path, forcing us to go into the dense forest to get around until we emerged at a small river on the other side.
As if our first snake encounter was not a sufficient introduction to the rainforest, along the trail we came across an incredibly pungent smell. Leaning down to a nearby damp tree the odour hit us, we were in big cat territory, and with pumas and a jaguar recently spotted we prepared our scariest noises and stances just in case…
But not all moments posed such threats, and over the coming days I built up a log of potential plant specimens to model and noted their locations for the future. Other notable moments on trail include viewing Honduran white bats nesting in self-made leaf tents.
With some interesting subjects determined, in the next few days Steve began to set up the studio for our modelling, and when ready I ventured out to relocate previously spotted specimens.
One of these was Psychotria suerrensis and I re-visited the spot I had scouted it previously, collecting metadata for this specimen which has amazing colouration in its short-lived juvenile form. I then carefully extracted the plant from its position and potted it for bringing back to Steve to scan, after which it would be returned to the original location. Thus each model has associated scientific metadata, grounding it within reality and immortalising that specimen’s essence forever.
In our photogrammetry process, we are deploying a mix of in-field and in-studio modelling, and hope to move towards a more automated capture when we have had more time to problem solve the challenges that come with every new scientific project, especially novel ones like this.
The last two week has been a process of constant testing and retesting, with challenges including flower and leaf movement, reflection, colouration and wilting. With the incredible diversity of flora here, each species poses its own unique complications to be overcome.
As we move now into the next stage I am so glad to be able to highlight some of the beautiful flora and fauna of La Selva ecosystem with the world and share the PLANT GANG journey behind the production of our scientific NFTs.
LFG (Lets Fucking Grow)