All Entries in the "Conservation" Category

Costa Rica’s 10 Most Unique Hotels

Costa Rica is a place where competition for travelers’ dollars is intense and hotel property owners work hard to be different.

How does a “Hobbit Hotel” or secluded resort of geodesic-dome “jungalows” sound? Here are some of the ‘most unique’ hotels from all corners of Costa Rica.

Is Costa Rica a Third World, Second World or Developed Country?

There is a multi-million-dollar mega-mall in Escazú, west of San José, which sports outlets of some of the world’s most exclusive stores. But, according to the State of the Nation report in November, at least 16,000 Costa Rican homes are “without basic services,” such as electricity and running water.

A constant feature of this disparity in the makeup of Costa Rica is that, while certain areas of the country are surging ahead, there are many areas in which the country is not keeping up or is, indeed, falling behind.

El Niño and Pathogen Killed Costa Rica Toad – Not Global Warming

The Monteverde golden toad, vanished from Costa Rica’s Pacific coastal-mountain cloud forest in the late 1980s. The role that climate change played in the toad’s demise has been fiercely debated in recent years.

According to a new study, global warming did not kill a Costa Rica amphibian often cited as an example of climate-triggered extinction.

Costa Rica’s “La Gloria” Guanacaste Wind Farm Now Online

Costa Rica in its quest to be the first carbon neutral country on Earth has reached new heights toward its goal with the completion of the Proyecto Eólico Guanacaste or “La Gloria” electric generating wind farm.
55 wind turbines located at a spectacular site near the Miravalle Volcano (Volcán Miravalle) in Cordillera de Guanacaste, in close [...]

The Ancient and Mysterious Stone Spheres of Costa Rica

In the 1930’s, the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Brands International) was excavating the fertile, yet remote, farmlands of Costa Rica, near the Diquis Valley on the Pacific Ocean coast. United Fruit is the major importer of bananas and they became interested in this region of Costa Rica because of a blight that had killed [...]

Boosting Biodiversity and the Global Economy by Saving a Species

“Forty-nine”, a researcher whispers.
After counting the slimy, round white eggs just laid by a rare leatherback turtle in a hole dug in the sand under bright moonlight on Playa Grande beach in Costa Rica; researcher Tera Dornfeld marks the site of the eggs after the female turtle has filled in the hole with her giant [...]

Spring Break Costa Rica – the Hemesphere’s Best Kept Secret

Spring break is greatly anticipated by most college students being as it indicates the end of winter, the opportunity to put down the books, take a break from studying and of course; do a little partying.
Students look forward to a change of scenery and day dream about places like Cancun and some of the beaches [...]

Costa Rica Remains an Environmental Index Leader as U.S. Falls

A new ranking of the world’s nations by environmental performance puts some of the globe’s largest economies far down the list, with the United States sinking to 61st and China to 121st.
In the 2008 version of the Environmental Performance Index, compiled every two years by a consortium between Yale University and Columbia University researchers; Costa [...]

Rutgers GREEN Team Students Studied Renewable Energy in Costa Rica

The dreams of Rutgers University’s Global Renewable Energy Education Network Team (GREEN Team) transformed into reality over winter break when their renewable energy program in Costa Rica launched its pilot session.
Students landed at the San Jose airport on January 5, 2010 and spent 12 days learning and applying renewable energy ideas, enjoying the environment and [...]

Last-Ditch Leftwing Alliance to ‘Save’ Costa Rica from a Conservative Presidency

Political forces on the left in Costa Rica have formed a partial last-minute alliance to support Ottón Solís, the presidential candidate for the center-left Citizen’s Action Party (PAC, Partido Acción Ciudadana), in a bid to counter the conservative lead that the polls predict for the upcoming Feb. 7, 2010 national presidential election.
The governing National Liberation [...]

A Tale of Three Different Caribbean Countries

One of the happiest countries on the planet shows that protecting biodiversity has a lot to do with wellbeing
HAPPINESS IS a state of mind, but if it were a place, it might well be the central American republic of Costa Rica. Located just a few hundred miles west of the benighted Haiti, Costa Rica is [...]

EARTH University – Carbon Neutral, Sustainable and Bananas Over Paper

EARTH University in Costa Rica opened in 1990 as a private, non-profit international institution dedicated to education, research and the generation of value through production, transformation and commercialization activities centered around agricultural sciences and the rational management of natural resources.
Officially named Universidad E.A.R.T.H. (Escuela de Agricultura de la Region Tropical Humeda), EARTH University’s 990 acre [...]

Thriving Sex Industry Bumps Costa Rica from List of Most Ethical Destinations

When travel magazines and sites come out with top ten “eco” lists they’re usually the top ten places who did a good job marketing themselves as green. Okay, maybe that’s too harsh. They are usually places that are actually doing things responsibly because no editor wants to get a stack of hate mail or a [...]

Costa Rica’s President: It’s Not Easy Being Green

From the ubiquitous T-shirts sporting a red-eyed tree frog clinging to an Imperial beer bottle, to the best-selling postcards featuring the flamboyant poison-dart frog holding court in the rainforest, Costa Ricans today identify with frogs the way Russians relate to bears. That’s because Costa Rica over the past generation has built a reputation as one [...]

Exploring Costa Rica’s Bat Jungle in Monteverde

Costa Rica is home to 109 species of bats, which number fully half the mammal species in the country. You’re sure to come across them during a visit.
By day, certain species are easy to spot snoozing by clinging like vines to tree trunks. Another species gathers huge banana leaves together and weaves them into a [...]

Why is Costa Rica Smiling?

This Central American country tops the Happy Planet Index.
A child growing up in the Costa Rican countryside is surrounded by some of the most beautiful and biodiverse landscapes in the world. The government of this tiny Central American country aims to keep it that way. But preserving this land of tropical rainforests isn’t Costa Rica’s [...]

Drugs, Guns… and Eggs?

“She’s got eggs!” shouted the police officer behind mirrored aviators from the bow of the boat. Dressed in dark blue SWAT-style fatigues, the officer held up a wet, woven plastic sack at arm’s length.
I was in one of the three water taxis departing Tortuguero, Costa Rica at 11:30 a.m. which were all stopped mid-stream. Blocking [...]

Blogger’s View of ‘Hopenhagen’ Climate Summit featuring Costa Rica

My name is Aubrey Ann Parker, I am 24, from Traverse City, and I am one of 12 student representatives from The University of Michigan attending the 15th Conference of the Parties United Nations Climate Change Convention beginning this week in Copenhagen, Denmark.
I will be blogging for the Detroit Free Press from Tuesday to next [...]

Rutgers University GREEN Program Explores Renewable Energy in Costa Rica

Rutgers clean energy program is coming to Costa Rica to study renewable energy and associated post-graduation jobs.
A new renewable energy program, which began as the vision of three Rutgers University students, has come to fruition.

The Global Renewable Energy Education Network (GREEN) — a 12-day program taking place in Costa Rica — is designed to [...]

Costa Rica Turtles Casualties of Warming and Development, Leatherback Boys to the Rescue

The Costa Rica resort town of Playa Grande was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. So Kaja Michelson, a Swedish tourist, arrived with high expectations. “Of course we’re hoping to see turtles — that is part of the appeal,” she said.
But haphazard development, [...]