It was a sunny day, like any other in Costa Rica's Guantacaste Conservation Area back in 1997.

The vegetation was flourishing, animal species were thriving, and the land had never looked better.

But all of a sudden, several trucks appeared on the horizon.

They tracked their way through the park and then unbelievably dumped all the cargo

they'd been carrying right in the middle of the area and just drove off. But it wasn't just any cargo.

It was orange peels. Over the next year, more than a thousand trucks would drive to this

otherwise beautiful

site dumping a massive 12,000 metric tons of orange peels over the land.

Was the owner of these trucks trying to ruin the landscape?

Was dumping them here some sort of super weird act of vandalism or protest?

Were they trying to clear the area of its flora and fauna for their own means

using a weird all natural deterrent? Well, get comfy, because we're about to dive deep into

this strange story of man versus nature, and many others like it.

You're listening. You're listening. You're listening. You're listening. You're listening. You're listening. You're being amazed.

Okay.

To get to the bottom of this orangey mess, we need to rewind all the way back to 1976.

That's when Daniel Jansen and Winnie Hallwax graduated from Princeton University and began focusing their careers on ensuring a future for endangered tropical forest ecosystems.

They became ecologist at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as advisors for many years at Guantacaste Conservation Area.

Though the country only covers 0.03% of the Earth's surface,

Costa Rica accounts for a massive 6% of the entire world's biodiversity, and Jansan and

Hullochs were keen to keep it that way. However, in 1995, Fruit Juice Company Del Oro set up a large factory and extensive groves near this conservation area,

and the borderlands between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

...