A question via Twitter: "Is it true that Nicaragua is home to the world's 2nd largest bat?" - Tours To Nicaragua (@NicaGuide) The answer is a qualified "yes." Nicaragua is home to the spectral bat, the largest known carnivorous bat, and a member of the megabat family. The largest of the "megabats" is the Giant golden-crowned flying fox (Acerodon jubatus), a rare fruit bat whose wingspan can be almost six feet. Nicaragua's...
Help Paso Pacifico every time you shop and search online by adding our new GoodSearch toolbar: http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/paso-pacifico Adding the GoodToolbar is a great way to ensure that every purchase and web search you make will count as a donation to your cause.
If you're traveling to Central America and interested in the incredible diversity of the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, please consider taking a tour with Explore La Flor, an eco-tour company born of our initiative to empower communities by launching entrepreneurs and training community nature guides. As the tourism sector grows in Nicaragua, nature tourism has the potential to provide economic benefit to local communities while also supporting conservation efforts. Paso Pacifico...
On Flickr: Another slideshow with more photos from Liz Mering's recent trip to Nicaragua. This set is courtesy of Suzanne Hagel and Bill Noble.
Including this adorable sloth! The full slideshow, courtesy of Suzanne Hagel and Liz Mering, is on Flickr.
We are working with various partners, including the Stones & Waves Vet Clinic, to establish a new monkey sanctuary for six rescued spider monkeys.If you are interested, please consider making a donation to help us build enclosures to protect the monkeys in their new habitat at Domitla Wildlife Reserve, located in the foothills of Mombacho Volcano.
Check out our latest slideshow of photos from the field.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is profiling a different species every day. Today they're featuring the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle, a creature with which we're very familiar. Check out their awesome species fact sheet.
Paso Pacifico has been invited to a public forum on climate change for the City of Ventura, January 19th.
Twenty years from now, we hope our monitoring program will include free online access for all the world like the Shapiro database (described below) and allow for more analysis of the unique climate and ecology of Central America. A press release from the University of California, Davis, our founder's alma mater: California butterflies are reeling from a one-two punch of climate change and land development, says an unprecedented analysis led by...
A couple nights ago, our turtle rangers met a Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) in Ostional, and gathered some data.
We are pleased to be a part of Maya Lin's What is Missing Project.
SustainableBusiness.com News has a piece on Maya Lin's "What is Missing?" project, which honored Paso Pacifico's Return to Forest program in Copenhagen: Maya Lin, the world-renowned artist and designer, revealed a new media piece in Copenhagen on Wednesday on the sidelines of United Nations climate change negotiations. The video, titled "Unchopping a Tree" is the latest iteration of a larger project, called "What is Missing?," which Lin said will be her last memorial....
At Paso Pacifico, we've always been committed to education. Teaching about the environment from a young age is the best way to ensure that children grow up to value their natural resources and promote conservation. Since 2007, Paso Pacifico's environmental education teacher, Julie Martinez, has been traveling around the Paso del Istmo, taking hands-on environmental curriculum to schools. Last month, Julie took a group of schoolchildren from Sapoa (a small...
We're pleased with all the press coming out of WILD9. This piece in the San Antonio Current provides a great overview of the event and highlights our work in the context of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor: Living forest and a tree plantation are perhaps primarily distinguished by the diversity of species present. Howler monkeys, orangutans, giant sloths, and jaguars are the stuff of forests, the substance of biodiversity. For this...
Rare giant sea turtle found on Stinson Beach An endangered giant sea turtle rarely found north of Mexico washed up alive on Stinson Beach after drifting possibly thousands of miles. "This is definitely a rare find, one of only three live olive ridley turtles I know of reported in the scientific literature since 2001 along the Central California coast," said Todd Steiner, a biologist and executive director of the Sea...
Trained by retired US National Park Service Ranger and Paso Pacifico Board Member Rick Smith, our turtle rangers form the "thin green line" protecting thousands of endangered animals and places. Working 'round the clock, turtle rangers patrol the beaches, monitoring nesting turtles, protecting hatchlings from predators, and using non-confrontational approaches to ask that egg poachers cease poaching on their beaches. We are extremely proud of our turtle rangers, who have...
In advance of the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, the Ventura County Star gives us more love:There is debate over whether any kind of meaningful international agreement will come out of the summit. But the local people attending think it will help push the climate issue further along and lay groundwork for a future agreement.“The value is that we continue to work toward a climate solution,” said Sarah Otterstrom, executive...
We are so pleased to learn that the What is Missing? (WIM) Foundation will honor Paso Pacifico by purchasing certified carbon offset credits and by donating to our Return to Forest project.We were thrilled to receive notification of this honor, along with an invitation to attend a REDD+ special event at the IPCC summit in Copenhagen next month. The WIM Foundation exists to "help protect habitat and safeguard biodiversity through diverse...
La Prensa covered the presentation of our findings from this year's International Coastal Cleanup, gathering over 300,000 pounds of trash: Recolectan más de 300 mil libras de basura Un total de 332 mil 925 libras de basura inorgánica fue recolectada durante la jornada, en la que participaron 30 municipios que poseen costas incluyendo a Bluefields, Corn Island, San Rafael del Sur, Granada, Diriamba, Jinotepe, Juigalpa, Corinto, Puerto Cabezas, San Juan...
¡Felicidades Karina! Meet Karina Alvarez, from Pueblo Nuevo in the Rivas province of Nicaragua. Karina won honorable mention in a national children's art contest, after taking a Paso Pacifico-sponsored course in nature painting. Karina is a shining example of how our environmental education programs help develop a culture of conservation.
We're excited to have videographers from CAVUsite.org visiting the Paso del Istmo this week. They're getting footage for a documentary on the future of tourism in Nicaragua. Dedicated to helping people solve complex problems related to the management and conservation of natural resources, CAVU uses flight, film, and education to bring people and communities together for conservation.
San Juan del Sur's Annual Panga Fishing Tournament took place this weekend. Paso Pacifico's National Director, Liza Gonzalez was on hand to deliver a presentation about marine conservation. If you watch this video, you'll understand why everyone at Paso Pacifico is happy to be a part of the San Juan del Sur community.
We're pleased to be included in this piece at the Environmental News Service: MÉRIDA, Mexico, November 13, 2009 (ENS) - For the first time in decades, the eggs of endangered sea turtles buried on a small strip of Nicaraguan beach will not be collected and sold in local food markets. A program developed by nonprofit Paso Pacífico pays residents up to $2.50 for each turtle hatchling that reaches the surf...
You're just as likely to find them in the field in Rivas, checking on our biodiversity monitoring stations, traveling from rural school to rural school on horseback, measuring tree growth at one of our reforestation projects, or just picking up garbage on the beach, but this is Paso Pacifico's Managua-based team. Paso Pacifico team visits the Montibelli Private Nature Reserve
Our friends at AMICTLAN have shared this great video of the white-faced capuchin monkey, with friends of the Laguna de Apoyo Nature Reserve.
Unique solar technology aids Paso Pacifico in protecting endangered sea turtles Media Contacts: Wendy Purnell, Paso Pacifico 1-805-643-7044 wendy@pasopacifico.org Sheila Kennedy, Portable Light Project 1-617-442-0800 skennedy@kvarch.net It was a chance meeting at PopTech’s annual innovation conference two years ago that sparked collaboration between California-based NGO Paso Pacífico and the Portable Light Project. At the event, Paso Pacífico Executive Director, Dr. Sarah Otterstrom, and Portable Light Project founder, Sheila Kennedy,...
Adelayde Rivas, our PR guru in Managua shares a sad story. The other day she got a call from Paso Pacifico, informing her of an arribada at La Flor, the sea turtles were arriving to nest on the beach. She set aside a mountain of work and errands in Managua to head for the coast, dig her feet into the clean sands of the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, and take...
Over at Project Groundswell, S. Neil Larsen, shares his adventures on horseback visiting our Return to Forest program: Under a midday sun, I guided my horse up a steep, dusty slope, eventually emerging at the top of a ridge overlooking a brown valley, roads crisscrossing the landscape. Though it was the dry season on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast, this area seemed more void of life than normal. Above, a large hawk...
We've added photos from this year's Coastal Cleanup to our Flickr photo album. You can browse through the photos here. And the data is in! Over six thousand volunteers picked up over 300,000 pounds of garbage along 167 miles of coastline.
This bittersweet story of a romantic marriage proposal with unintended consequences for marine life, is a good illustration of why Paso Pacifico Turtle Rangers have custom-designed red lights on their solar FLAP bags from the Portable Light Project. A romantic marriage proposal on a Hilton Head Island beach Tuesday night had an unintended consequence -- the death of about 60 federally protected loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. A man had placed...
Volunteers hard at work in Ostional Starting early in the morning, thousands of volunteers joined us in our efforts to protectNicaragua's waterways for the International Coastal Cleanup Day, an annual event organized by the Ocean Conservancy. Our volunteers worked along the coast from San Juan del Sur to Ostional, and up the riverbanks to Escameca. Coastal cleanup includes our river banks. These kids are lending a hand in Escameca. This event...
The MIDWAY media project is a powerful visual journey into the heart of an astonishingly symbolic environmental tragedy. The Midway Trash-a-Thon illustrates the importance of cleaning up our waterways. Watch this video of two members of the Midway Journey project rummaging through a huge pile of garbage. It looks like they could be at a municipal dump, but they're just sitting among garbage collected on the beaches of the tiny,...
“Limpieza Internacional de Costas” Nicaragua 2009 PROGRAMA 6:00a.m. - Salida de Managua 9:00 a.m. Llegada a San Juan del Sur 9:30ª.m. Palabras de apertura y agradecimiento Alcalde de la Municipalidad de San Juan del Sur, Jorge Sánchez. 9:45ª.m. Palabras de Liza González, Directora Nacional de Paso Pacífico. 10:00 Acto Cultural a cargo del grupo Folclórico de San Juan del Sur. 12:30p.m Almuerzo 3:00p.m. Cierre de Campaña Limpieza Internacional de...
Event to benefit Central American forests, wildlife Noche Tropical September 11th Brooks Restaurant Ventura, CA We're in the news at the Ventura County Star: Local wines, a Latin-inspired meal and stories from the tropics will highlight Noche Tropical, a fundraiser benefiting the wildlife and forests of Central America on Thursday at BROOKS Restaurant in Ventura. “This fundraiser was inspired by realizing that there are members of the local community who...
We look forward to attending the Clinton Global Initiative later this month where we'll be recognized for our work empowering women and supporting sustainable agriculture. A relatively young organization founded by women, we launched our environmental programs in communities throughout the Rivas province of Nicaragua, with no thought for the gender of our participants. Over time it has become apparent that the success of Paso Pacifico's projects hinges on the...
We're pleased to be joining forces with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Leon (UNAN-Leon) in Nicaragua. We'll be working together to do conservation work, conduct research, and provide internship opportunities for students. To celebrate our new partnership, they're joining us to help coordinate Nicaragua's 2nd annual International Coastal Cleanup Day, covering 12 km of beaches along the Pacific coast.
September 4th, 2009 10:00 am Restaurant Cafe El Garabato An invitation for members of the press to learn about Nicaragua's participation in the International Coastal Cleanup Day, co-sponsored by MARENA and the Ocean Conservancy. Cleanup day activities will take place along 12 Km of Nicaragua's Pacific coastline on September 19th.
For more than two decades, poachers raided every single sea turtle nest on the beach in Ostional, a small fishing village along the Nicaragua's southern Pacific coast. Determined to change that, we came up with a system of incentive payments to reward individuals for finding, reporting, and protecting turtle nests, and additional incentive payments to reward the community at large for supporting our conservation efforts. How's that commitment to voluntary...
"Our" turtle Brasilia has made it to El Salvador. You can monitor her progress here. Our turtle rangers have also encountered a third Hawksbill turtle, which will receive the transmitter which was stolen from Karen.
Paso Pacifico and the Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas have officially joined forces to help to guide our partnership and strengthen Paso Pacifico’s commitment to supporting the Private Reserve Network. We are very fortunate to be partnering with such a valuable organization and its members. Please check out the website for the Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas when you have a chance. You will be amazed at how the membership...
September 4th Paso Pacifico will be holding a national press conference with MARENA and its many other partners about the International Coastal Clean-up. We expect it to be a major press event. Stay tuned for more coverage. The clean up is scheduled for September 19th. We have also received a grant to support the clean-up event. A portion of the fund will be used to purchase garbage canisters to be...
Our coastal, harbor, and waterways cleanups are even more important than we thought: WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2009 — In the first study to look at what happens over the years to the billions of pounds of plastic waste floating in the world’s oceans, scientists are reporting that plastics — reputed to be virtually indestructible — decompose with surprising speed and release potentially toxic substances into the water. Reporting here today...
We are thrilled that our partners at the Portable Light Project are INDEX Award finalists. The INDEX Award is one of the most significant awards for designs that improve life. We've just put our new solar FLAP bags from the Portable Light Project to work in the field. Sloan Kuyper from the Portable Light Project teaches turtle rangers about his team's product. Turtle Rangers at La Flor show off their...
NOVA: Hunting the Hidden Dimension Paso Pacifico founder, ecologist Sarah Otterstrom, ponders our carbon sequestration projects. Bill Enquist, a plant ecologist at the University of Arizona, is using fractals to further understanding of forests and how they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help regulating the Earth's climate. Enquist and his team of scientists are working in forest reserves in the Guanacaste Province in Costa Rica, which borders the area where...
"The Plan establishes the profiles for projects to be developed in a 1,600 kilometer-long geographic area which links three countries’ landscapes, ecosystems, habitats and cultures, the local Environment Ministry (Semarena) announced today." Reported in Dominican Today We'll be watching!
We're getting excited to welcome our friends from the Portable Light Project to Nicaragua. They're bringing customized solar FLAP units for use on the turtle nesting beaches. These special units, created just for us, will be mounted to these bags (pictured at right). Each unit will emit a red light, rather than a white light, to ensure that they don't disorient turtle hatchlings who follow the moonlight to sea. We're grateful to...
Yesterday was a good day. We recovered the stolen turtle transmitter without police intervention. This, of course, is partly due to the fact that the stolen device was still transmitting its location. Fortunately, though, we also had conflict resolution training and experience on our side. Once our staff explained the transmitter's value for conservation and for sea turtles, the device was returned. Everyone is at peace and we have our...
Picking up Rick Smith's recent piece at National Parks Traveler, EcoLocalizer has posted about our turtle rangers and community-based conservation programs: Paso Pacífico, a non-profit organization focusing on the Pacific slope of Central America, is helping endangered Hawksbill Turtles in Nicaragua with a compensation-based conservation program based on incentive payments for local people. The financial rewards to locals in exchange for protecting endangered sea turtle nests are making a difference:...
Believe it or not, someone has stolen the satellite tracking device right off the back of Karen the Hawksbill sea turtle. Our colleagues in Ostional are trying to recover it -- luckily the stolen device is trackable! Meanwhile, Karen is doing just fine. In fact, she nested last night at one of our beaches. Our rangers protected her and continue to protect her nest.
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