Wildlife Conservation Insights | Paso Pacifico Blog

CAVU, helping people save critical ecosystems in Latin America

From this month's CAVU newsletter: The first of CAVU’s three films released this year was created in collaboration with NGO Paso Pacífico. “Paso del Istmo” is a narrow ribbon of land between the vast Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean which harbors remnant dry tropical forest, and species such as spider monkeys, yellow-naped parrots, freshwater bullsharks and mass arrivals of olive ridley sea turtles. It is a crucial land bridge...

Species of the Day: Green Turtle

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species of the Day is the Green Turtle. The Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas, is listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM. This long-lived and highly migratory species is found in tropical and, to a lesser extent, sub-tropical waters throughout the globe. The Green Turtle has the most numerous and widely dispersed nesting sites of the seven turtle species. Green Turtles...

Central American Surf Championship

(Liza Gonzalez Director of Paso Pacifico in Nicaragua meeting with the Nicaraguan National Surf Team) This year's Central American Surf Championship took place on November 19, 20, and 21 at Madera San Juan del Sur Beach in Nicaragua. Paso Pacifico partnered with Nicaragua's National Surf Team to promote the preservation of a healthy marine habit in Nicaragua's Paso Del Ismo. The event featured 80 of the best surfers in Central...

Cooperative Forest Management

From this month's Science Roundup: Sustainably managing common natural resources, such as fisheries, water, and forests, is essential for our long-term survival. Conventional analysis assumes that groups struggle to manage common natural resources because of free-riders and people who will maximize short-term self-benefits at the expense of long-term sustainability (the so-called "tragedy of the commons"). However, behavioral laboratory experiments have shown evidence that "conditional cooperation" -- individual cooperation contingent upon the cooperation...

Trees Fight Pollution

ScienceNow has good news for those of us planting trees: "Research shows that deciduous tree leaves, such as those from the maple, aspen, and poplar, suck up far more atmospheric pollutants than previously thought."

Getting Connected in Nicaragua

My first time to Nicaragua, I spent a week in an old pick-up truck we parked on a hill each night so we could jumpstart it each morning. We traveled the Paso del Istmo biologicial corridor from one "unconnected" place to another. Along the fertile coasts and in the arid mountain forests, we saw (or heard) amazing wildlife, and met dedicated people who were excited to share everything they knew...

Census of Marine Life

Earlier this month, the first ever Census of Marine Life was published, a culmination of a decade of research. Nearly three thousand scientists from around the world worked together to establish an oceanic baseline for future study. The census includes over 240,000 marine species (presumed to be 25% of the total number of species in the worlds oceans) and has three points of focus: diversity distribution abundance "The census found...

Knowledge of Climate Change

The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has just released the results of their study on Americans' knowledge of climate change. Among the important findings are that, when it comes to climate change, many Americans "misunderstand the causes and therefore the solutions." Large majorities, however, correctly understand that planting trees and reducing tropical deforestation would reduce global warming if they were done worldwide. We hope this means that more people will support our...

UC Davis Alumni Awards

On Friday October 8th, Paso Pacifico's founder and director Sarah Otterstrom was awarded "Outstanding Alumni" at the UC Davis College of Agriculture and Environmental Science's 22nd annual college celebration. Otterstrom was chosen for her innovative work in bringing together landowners, citizens, and community leaders in conserving wildlife and native plant species in Nicaragua. The college celebration acknowledged other alumnus and friends of the college whose contributions to communities around the...

Focus on Flora

To fill the gaps in knowledge used to determine conservation status, says Eimear Lic Lughadha in the October 1st issue of Science, "plants may be more representative of what's happening to the whole of biodiversity." The reliance of so many species on various plants has led to a new technique called the Sampled Red List Index, using statistical sampling for estimating the risk of extinction within a particular geographic location....

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