I recently had the pleasure of spending a week in the company of Angelica and Antonia, who are from our Women's Oyster Cooperative in Ostional, Nicaragua. I also met Yorlin Vargas, a Paso Pacifico ranger who works a lot with the cooperative. Before I met them at Carlsbad Aquafarm, they spent time on Catalina Island and with experts at USC Wrigley Insitute, where they learned about new oyster husbandry techniques...
In 2015, our new GPS-enabled artificial egg technology was one of 16 Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge winners. From there, these eggs—now called InvestEGGators—competed with the other winning projects for three Acceleration Prizes, which would be awarded to those who made "truly remarkable progress in turning promising ideas into viable solutions positioned for scale and impact on the ground." We are thrilled to announce that we won an Acceleration Prize! Our...
Many of you may know that La Flor Wildlife Refuge is globally recognized for its important Olive Ridley sea turtle nesting beach. However, the marine protected area of 20,000 acres (7875 ha) is of equal importance to marine biodiversity. The area provides valuable habitat for juvenile hawksbill sea turtles and overwintering humpback whales from both North and South America. Some of the highest diversity in soft corals and echinoderms are...
Nicaragua is losing one of its most iconic and colorful species – the Cyanoptera macaw (Ara macao cyanoptera). This subspecies of the scarlet macaw has a distinctive wing pattern and is critically endangered: by 2015, Nicaragua's population had dwindled to a mere 14 birds! So, with support from Loro Parque Fundación, the Brandywine Zoo, Projets Plus Action, and individual donors, Paso Pacifico has been working to rescue these macaws from the...
"I feel empowered, and now I look at myself as an entrepreneur. We went from informality to having vision . . . Aspiring is not only believing in dreams, it is changing one’s attitude to see the changes." - Sonia, hostel owner, ELLAS Initiative In 2011, we had a vision: to empower female "enviropreneurs" to harness market forces and employ voluntary solutions to environmental problems in their local communities. Then, with...
We are thrilled to share a major breakthrough here on the blog! Recently we were awarded a significant grant from the IUCN-Netherlands, and that means we will be able to complete the purchase of a beautiful forest area in the heart of the Paso del Istmo. In honor of the critically endangered black-handed spider monkeys that live there, we’ve named this 120-acre property the Mono Bayo Reserve. This forest is...
As you may know, Nicaragua went through a serious drought earlier this year. In fact, it’s the worst dry spell Nicaragua has experienced in over 30 years. The dry tropical forests in the Paso Del Istmo that we work in have been hit hard, and as a result many species are struggling to find the water that they need to survive. One such species is the Mantled howler monkey. The...
On April 22, 2015, USAID issued the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge in an effort to bring together international communities to create solutions that address critical wildlife crime issues. One of the issues highlighted by the challenge is the network of well-established international transit routes that poachers and traffickers use to move their products to customers. These transit routes are the backbone to the global wildlife trafficking industry which generates billions...
As a conservation biologist, one of the most important parts of my job is making trips to the field so that I can better design and manage the many scientific projects that Paso Pacífico's local employees work on. Others imagine that I spend most of these trips walking up rivers to survey frogs, scrambling through jungle to follow monkeys, or capturing bats on the crater edge of and active volcano...
When 8-year-olds Matson and Jonas decided to do something to save sea turtles, they reached out to their school community for help. They received an extraordinary response from teachers, staff, students, and families at Oak Grove School. Through a village of shared learning and friendship, the boys were able to reach a much larger audience with their campaign. The power of this collective was so great that it helped the...
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