All Entries in the "Environment (Medio Ambiente)" Category

Costa Rica Jaguars get a Protected Migration Pathway

Animal conservation groups are working to create natural corridors for big cats to travel through human-populated areas.

One such corridor is already in-place to help Costa Rica’s jaguars survive, but development is a constant threat to even established pathways.

Costa Rica’s Newest, Largest Marina Boating Facility Opens April 21

Marina Pez Vela, promoted as ‘Costa Rica’s first full service marine facility offering all the necessities for serious boating and amenities for non-serious fun in one of the most spectacular fishing locations in the world’, is opening April 21.

Slips ranging from 35 to 200 feet are located inside a huge new 44 acre breakwater-enclosed harbor, located in the Central Pacific town of Quepos.

The Last Jaguars of Costa Rica

For nearly 20-years Dr. Eduardo Carrillo has been tracking, filming and gathering data on the near threatened jaguar population of Costa Rica.

Carrillo explains that the forests of Latin America are the symbolic heart of this region, and the health of the jaguar population is a key indicator of just how healthy the forests are.

8 Things Costa Rica Taught Me During My Visit

World Wildlife Fund’s Elissa Poma accompanied the WWF on their most recent 2009/2010 Costa Rica for Families EcoTour.

Here are 8 things Elissa learned about Costa Rica during her visit.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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; [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Break Me Off A Piece Of Costa Rica

Nicholas Kristof has a happy-go-lucky column yesterday in the New York Times about Costa Rica that reads as part tourism advertisement, part political common sense. He goes on and on about how the country is consistently ranked high in “happiness” surveys. This is true. How, then, did they get that way? What sets Costa Rica [...]

Costa Rica’s Caldera Highway, a Direct Route to the Pacific Coast

A 30 year road project is finally nearing reality in Costa Rica. UPDATE: Costa Rica’s San José to Caldera Pacific Highway now Open (click here for article) The 77 kilometer highway from San José to Caldera is expected to cut 45 minutes off travel to the Central Pacific Coast, which is currently accessible via Aguacate [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]