English
EspañolEquator Prize Database
Our friends at the Equator Initiative have launched a cool Case Study Database to share the work of their Equator Prize winners. This is a great resource for everyone interested in community-based environmental conservation.
Protecting Nicaragua’s Coastline
The pioneers of the surfing industry have also been pioneers in ocean mapping, climate tracking, and ocean conservation. Naturally, surfers were the first group of tourists to venture into Nicaragua, putting its beautiful, undeveloped beaches on the map for ocean lovers worldwide. In the past 20 years, tourism in Nicaragua has increased nearly tenfold, bringing much needed economic development. In the same period, Central America's most impoverished nation – home...
Underwater Robots to Monitor Climate Change
Over at TreeHugger:Underwater robots, otherwise known as autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, have been exploring the ocean floor for years, documenting species and habitats and monitoring changes to the seabed, but there are spots in the ocean that are too hazardous even for robots. Deep ravines, steeply dropping canyons and other major obstacles have so far been too much for AUVs to navigate, but thanks to a new software system,...
Parrots Get a Second Chance
We're featured in the November/December issue of the Humane Society's All Animals magazine: Down the Pacific coast almost to the Costa Rica border, a non- profit called Paso Pacifico, using money from the Loro Parque Foundation and Parrots International, pays landowners to protect parrot nests from poachers, who are usually unemployed trespassers well-known in local communities for breaking the law. Lezama, the ornithologist, has recruited two former poachers to locate...
Can Galapagos Corals Predict the Future of Reefs Worldwide?
"This summer, a major coral survey found that some of the islands’ coral communities are showing promising signs of recovery," the Environment News Service reported last week. The article provides a pretty good overview of how climate change, ocean acidification, and warmer currents affect coral reefs.
Ocean Acidification Threatens Sea Snails
Sea snails' shells are being eaten by increasingly acidic ocean waters, the first evidence that the changing chemistry of the oceans threatens marine habitat. Read more on CNN: The amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is increasing, mainly because of the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, according to the World Meteorological Organization. That means that the planet's oceans, natural carbon storage facilities, are absorbing more and more...
Central America’s Hidden Turtles
In the newest issue of WildHope Magazine, SEEtheWILD Director Brad Nahill writes about his adventures with sea turtle researchers from the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative (ICAPO) and Fauna & Flora International. Our friends, operating in El Salvador and Nicaragua, are working to protect perhaps the world’s most endangered population of sea turtles. Read the article here: http://bit.ly/ForgottenTurtleshttp://bit.ly/ForgottenTurtles On page 10, you'll find an update on our jaguar project.
The Dark: Nature’s Nighttime World – TV Review
This synopsis of the new nature show The Dark makes us wish our cable package included BBC2: Advanced thermal imaging cameras and motion sensitive cameras enabled the team to unearth the secrets of nocturnal animals in south and central America. And researchers spent long hours making sure they were in the right place at the right time. It made for thrilling viewing. Jaguars were shown moving stealthily, hunting nesting turtles by the...
Nicaragua: Land of 100 Bat Species
Carol L. Chambers, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Northern Arizona University, has an article about the bat survey she did with us in the new Bats magazine. The Paso del Istmo is a narrow strip of low mountains sand-wiched between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. This isthmus is only 12 miles (19 kilometers) wide, but it is a critical passageway for wildlife migrating between North and South America or...
Messaging Ecosystem Services
From the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation blog: People HATE the terms "ecosystem services" and "natural capital"; the very concept that nature "serves" us is unappealing; abstract cases for markets are off-putting, and; while Americans across the political spectrum are deeply and strongly committed to valuing nature, dollars are the least preferred way of doing so. "The language surrounding ecosystem services is a jargon-rich, dense amalgam of scientific, financial, regulatory...
International Barcode of Life
Via the ArtScience Nexus: An interactive art show at the San Diego Natural History Museum interpreting the work of biodiversity scientists who use DNA barcoding to identify species.
Honu Has Returned to Brasilon
This weekend, Honu, the turtle we've been tracking since last month returned to Brasilon beach. You can follow her on her SeaTurtle.org page.
Nicaragua’s Jaguars
This fall, Paso Pacífico's team of wildlife biologists and machete-wielding rangers faced huge spiders, floods, earthquakes, and chest-deep swamps to place two dozen camera traps in remote forest areas. Their goal? To capture the elusive jaguars long thought extinct in the tropical forests of Nicaragua. Two years ago, an intern's camera trap captured one, proving their existence and highlighting the need for their protection. Jaguars require large areas of understory...
Empowering Women with Sustainable Energy
“Reducing energy poverty among women is a wise investment,” said Princess Haya, of the UAE, at this week's World Energy Forum 2012. We agree, which is why we partner with the Portable Light Project to develop solar textile lanterns made by women in rural Nicaragua, and used by women and children without electricity in their homes, extending their reading hours. The lanterns are also used by our turtle rangers. During the daytime,...
60 Years of Innovation
"We teach them that the ocean is alive and we've got to take care of it." Jack O'Neill "The Sea Odyssey Program has given an experience of a living ocean to 50,000 kids already."
Costs & Benefits of Preserving Nature
Mother Jones: "A global effort to prevent all future species extinctions would cost about $80 billion a year, or $11.42 annually from every person on the planet, according to a study published last week in Science." Scientific American: "More specifically, the study finds that lowering the extinction risk for all of the species that are currently known to be threatened would cost the first $4 billion per year. Protecting and...
500,000 Olive Ridley Sea Turtles
From the Turtle Conservancy's October Newsletter: Eric Goode along with writer Glenn O’Brien and Kortnie Coles traveled to the Pacific coast of Mexico to witness a natural phenomenon called an arribada (the Spanish word for “arrival”). During a 3 week period, over 500,000 Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) nest on a 3 km stretch of Escobilla Beach in Oaxaca. This nesting event peaks during the month of September. Only...
Climate Change Threatens Staple Crops
From ClimateWire: Beans and corn -- the staples of the Central American diet -- will become more difficult to grow as climate change progresses, according to a new study. ... Certain "hot spots" that are especially vulnerable are spread throughout the region, especially in Honduras and western Nicaragua. But other spots, including many areas in eastern Nicaragua and eastern Honduras, will become good adaptation areas for corn and beans through...
Robot Fish Patrolling for Plastics?
Over at Treehugger, you can read about "robo-fish, which were developed to look like and swim like real fish, can autonomously seek out pollution, debris and chemicals in the water and then feed information back to shore where it can be analyzed."
Maximizando Nuestro Momentum
Eleven rules for maximizing your momentum, from Paso Pacífico board member Gian Marco Palazio:
Delisting the Honu
Our friends at the Sea Turtle Restoration Project join the opposition of the delisting of the Hawaiian green sea turtle: Turtles Face Premature Loss of Protections and Return of Hunting Hawaiian green sea turtle populations have increased steadily since their hunting was banned and they were given federal protections and listed as threatened under the ESA in 1978. However, the Hawaiian honu is far from reaching the official government recovery...
Tagging a Hawksbill in Nicaragua
From our friends at Fauna and Flor International and ICAPO: Aquí les dejó un video (7 minutos) que preparamos para documentar la experiencia de marcaje satelital de tortugas carey aquí en Nicaragua en Julio pasado.
October Newsletter Online
Jaguars, coastal clean-ups, and sloth action shots! Check out our October newsletter to learn about jaguars and coastal clean-ups, and to read our biologists' adventures in camera trapping.
Is Climate Change Shrinking Fish?
Sunday's Guardian: Global warming is likely to shrink the size of fish by as much as a quarter in coming decades, according to a groundbreaking new study of the world's oceans. ... "Our work shows a very concerning future for the oceans and so it is very important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop better fish management policies to adapt to these changes," said Cheung. All the more reason...
Underwater with a Hawksbill
Thanks to our friends at ICAPO, SeaTurtle.org, and Flora & Fauna International for sharing these videos with us.
Arribada, Aerial Footage
Great aerial footage of an arribada in Mexico.
International Coastal Cleanup with NICA
Paso Pacífico has been managing Nicaragua's participation in the Ocean Conservancy's annual International Coastal Cleanup for five years. This past weekend, Comunidad Connect, TESÓN, and Barrio Planta helped us round up hundreds of volunteers who picked up over 2000 pounds of trash along the beaches and waterways of several coastal communities. You can read more about it (in Spanish) at El Nuevo Diario. This coming weekend is part two of...
12 Miles of Paradise
Over at the WILDblog, Brad Nahill, recalls "Exploring Nicaragua's Paso del Istmo": Brad Nahill spots a turtle (photo by Sarah Rudeen) We headed out by boat to explore the spectacular stretch of coast, possibly the most beautiful and dramatic of coastline that I’ve ever seen (and I live in Oregon). Crashing waves batter sloping flat rocks and white sand beaches hide behind rocky-forested outcrops. Moving north along the coast of...
Learning Together
Last night we met a great group of Pepperdine students who are partnered with us for a joint financial management course provided by the Ventura County Community Foundation and Pepperdine University. Our team includes Gemma and Reuben from southern California, and Lauren from Texas. All three are minoring in non-profit management and seem bright, well-informed, and eager to help us hone our fundraising strategies and financial planning procedures. We look...
Join Us September 22nd & 29th
Our August Newsletter Is Online
Meet a bat we didn't know existed in Nicaragua, follow a tagged sea turtle, and help us name the next turtle we tag. Conservation in Action On the night of June 27 on Brasilon beach in southwestern Nicaragua, a green sea turtle hauled herself ashore, dragged herself up the beach to the treeline, dug her nest, laid her eggs, and went on a walkabout. As she began winding down, Paso...
‘Batwoman’ Bags New Bat in Nicaragua
In yesterday's Arizona Daily Sun: NAU School of Forestry wildlife ecology professor Carol Chambers, and Nicaraguan bat expert Arnulfo Ramon Medina Fitoria netted, measured, weighed and documented the only Phylloderma stenops bat ever captured and recorded in the Central American country. This particular bat weighs about as much as 20 Hershey's kisses and usually is captured in mist nets above streams in evergreen forests. Learn more about our research on...
Presenting Alexa
We are pleased to introduce Alexa, the Hawksbill turtle to our colleagues and fellow friends of the sea. Alexa is named for Alex Gaos, co-founder of ICAPO, the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative. Alex and Ingrid Yañez have linked many people in Central America in their efforts to discover, understand, and protect the Hawksbill populations of the Eastern Pacific. Alexa arrived on the beach at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge in southern...
Presentando Alexa
Querido Amigos y Compañeros del mar, Quiero presentarles a la tortuga Carey, ALEXA. Ella es bendecida con su nombre en honor a nuestro dinámico y motivador líder Alex Gaos. Gracias a Alex e Ingrid todos somos vinculados como amigos y socios en la urgente causa de descubrir y proteger a la tortuga Carey del Pacífico Oriental. Alexa arribó a una playa del sur pacífico de Nicaragua (ubicado en el RVS...
Recognizing Paso Pacifico’s Rangers
Salvador Sanchez has been selected to travel to Argentina on a full scholarship for the eighth annual Latin American regional ranger training course. We're pleased that Salvador has been selected as the fourth Paso Pacifico ranger to represent Nicaragua in this prestigious program. We're proud of Salvador and all of our rangers, and we're grateful to Rick Smith and the Turner Foundation for their help building our successful ranger programs.
California’s Official Marine Reptile
The California state Senate voted this week to make the endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle the official marine reptile of California. Assuming Governor Jerry Brown signs the legislation into law, October 15th will officially be Leatherback Conservation Day in the state of California. Mark your calendars! Paso Pacifico's head turtle ranger, Salvador Sanchez, inspects a leatherback turtle on one of the beaches where we work to protect sea turtle nests. Every...
The Tortoise
Our friends at the Turtle Conservancy have launched The Tortoise, their new magazine dedicated to the appreciation and conservation of tortoises and turtles and their habitats worldwide. “Turtles and tortoises have been on our earth for more than 200 million years, before the great dinosaurs roamed the planet, and today they face unprecedented challenges for their survival. No vertebrate Order has a greater percentage of species facing extinction. This publication is...
Bat Calls
A team from Bats Conservation International, Paso Pacifico, and MARENA studies bats at Volcano Masaya National Park. Bats are essential to ecosystem health and their populations are dwindling around the world, so it is important to understand individual bat species, bat populations, and, of course, the reasons for their decline. In Nicaragua, we study bat populations and their insect diets because we're considered not just with ecological health, but also with...
Tracking Saralisa
Saralisa, the green sea turtle we tagged in June, is off the coast of El Salvador. She has traveled a long way and is now in the waters where two of the turtles recently tagged by ICAPO have run into trouble. One was blown up by dynamite fishing, the other caught in a fishing net (illustrating the importance of sustainable fisheries). We'll be watching Saralisa very closely over the next...
The Results Are In
In ten days on Playa Colorado for the ISA World Masters Surfing Championship, we hauled out 21000 pounds of garbage and 3000 pounds of recycables. Thanks again to partner organizations RENISA and Proyecto TESÓN who helped us keep the beaches clean.
From El Salvador: Hawksbills in the News
Sadly, today's batch of links includes news of the deaths of two critically endangered Hawksbills, both of whom were tagged by ICAPO earlier this summer. This video from Media Center ElSalvador.com (in Spanish) features interviews with ICAPO staff, as well as mangrove conservationists, and provides a thorough overview of the significance of the lessons learned from these particular turtles, one of whom died as a result of fishing with explosives, the other...
Aloha!
On July 14th the International Surfing Association World Masters Surfing Championship opened on Playa Colorado, Nicaragua, bringing the world's best surfers, surfing fans, and international media to the region where we work. Surfwire described Playa Colorado as "a place where the jungle met the sand and the Howler Monkeys offered early-morning wake-up calls" giving the international visitors "a first-hand opportunity to see and be a part of a surf culture...
Welcome to Playa Colorado!
This is our home all week for the International Surf Association's World Masters Surfing Championship. Here, in part, thanks to the SIMA Environmental Fund, which supports our Surf Ambassadors program for ocean conservation, we're helping with event logistics and making sure the environmental impact is minimal. Working with our RENISA and our Proyecto TESON partners at Comunidad Connect and Cafe Las Flores, we're patrolling the beach all day for litter. Playa Colorado...
The Underwater Enviropreneur
For the winter/spring edition of PERC Reports, Reed Watson talked to scuba diver and reef restoration entrepreneur, Brett Howell. As the Walker Conservation Fellow at the Georgia Aquarium, Howell hopes to illustrate that Florida's coral reefs, a hotbed of biodiversity, present opportunity for cooperation and restoration, rather than a source of conflict. Howell works with the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF), which grows endangered species of coral in nurseries, to identify...
One Turtle Saved
Fifteen years ago the hawksbill sea turtle in my hands would have been hog-tied, whisked hundreds of miles, slaughtered and carved into trinkets. Now, it swims free. On Baja’s Pacific coast, an adult male hawksbill sea turtle found its way into a fisherman’s net. In the past, for the fisherman anyway, such a thing would have been considered a stroke of good luck. The endless demand for turtle meat, eggs,...
Burt Talks to the Bees
Via the Sustainable Brands newsletter: Burt’s Bees is collaborating with artists and experts at the Pollinator Partnership to generate greater public awareness about the importance of honeybees to agriculture and the threats they face. For such small, short-lived creatures, bees do a lot of heavy lifting to keep life on Earth in balance. In fact, an estimated one-third of the food on Earth depends on pollination by bees. Because they...
Help Fight Fire with Fire
We echo the Nature Conservancy in saying that our hearts go out to those affected by the wildfires burning up the American West. Just as we asked for your help raising money to plant trees in the wake of the fire at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, the Nature Conservancy is asking for your help restoring forests to reduce the risk of megafires. As the Nature Conservancy's newsletter points out,...
Jaguar & Her Cub Spotted on Colombian Plantation
From NatGeo DailyNews: Jaguars currently live in isolated populations scattered across North and South America, which is part of the reason the species is listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. ... Usually, just one jaguar cub survives in a litter, so seeing two cubs alive and well is "heartwarming," he said. (Take a big cats quiz.) It's "important to note" that the camera traps...
Rio +20
Our friends at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry present a peek inside the Rio +20 Earth Summit, from a unique perspective, that of one of their students: "In 1992 I was one year old, I was learning to be a person, walk, talk, eat etc. I had no idea that there was an Earth summit or even a UN." You can follow the adventure on her blog.
Panthera’s Camera Traps Capture Jaguars On Colombian Oil Plantations
From Red Orbit: The first ever photographs of jaguars within an oil plantation in Colombia have just been released... Panthera, the world’s leading wild cat conservation organization, focuses solely on the study and conservation of wild cats. The camera traps placed by Panthera in the Magdalena River valley were meant to gather information about the dangers of Colombia’s growing oil plantations on the jaguar populations. Panthera’s objective is to understand...