He hopes that chocolate might make a significant contribution toward saving the world's rain forests. This article originally appeared in Discovery Online, the online magazine from The Discovery Channel. We slip through a crude wood-post and wire gate.
Sunlight softly filters through a latticework of giant, feathery ferns.
A tiny splash of red announces the presence of a poison arrow tree frog. Welcome to La Tirimbina, a 740-acre research preserve tucked in the Costa Rican rainforest. Tropical biologist Allen Young points to a tree that would be like any other rainforest shrub except for one thing. Young hacks off a red-brown fruit about the shape and size of a kid's toy football, ridged and bumpy. A seed squirts out of his hand.