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 care deeply about the rainforests and wildlife of Central America; these include local business owners who have generously donated to support our silent auction, and, of course, Restaurant BROOKS,” said Sarah Otterstrom, founder and executive director of Paso Pacifico, a Ventura-based nonprofit dedicated to conserving and restoring tropical forests and wildlife along Central America’s Pacific Coast.
For more information or to buy tickets: PasoPacifico.org/NocheTropical
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.
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 awarded to municipalities across the country with the best clean-up effort.
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: Rangers have reported that egg poaching is on the decline. And Paso Pacífico plans are to make this program sustainable.
You can see the EcoLocalizer piece here.
Paso Pacifíco board member, Rick Smith, has written a new piece for National Parks Traveler about the Hawksbills we’re tracking:
The rangers who discovered the two turtles kept them on the beach for two days, keeping their heads covered with wet towels and occasionally pouring water over their backs, so these unwitting reptilian volunteers could help scientists learn more about their dwindling species.
During the second day, a turtle expert from a regional program known as Project Hawksbill came and in cooperation with Paso Pacífico and the employees of MARENA (The Ministry of Natural Resources in Nicaragua) affixed a digital transmitter on the shells of the turtles using a special epoxy. So rigged, these transmitters should allow the turtles’ travels to be tracked when they come to the surface to breath during the next year or two.
This transmitter tagging was no small event. Children were released from school to observe the installation. Officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources were there, as were representatives of the media. It was very emotional when the children applauded when the second turtle returned to the sea after being liberated. I am sure none of them will become turtle egg poachers in the future.
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| Ranger Meeting |
Rick’s piece also describes the turtle ranger program he helped us launch:
Everyone recognized that the real heroes of this event were the rangers who work for Paso Pacífico, a non-profit organization founded in 2005 to focus on restoring and protecting the endangered ecosystems along the Pacific slope of Central America.
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These rangers patrol unprotected beaches to protect turtle nests from poaching….All were very enthusiastic about what they were doing. They report that the number of egg poachers is slowly declining and that the incentive program is having a positive effect.
Read the whole piece here:
Exporting “Rangering”: Working To Help Nicaraguans Safeguard Rare Hawksbill Turtles
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| Karen heads out to sea |
Karen and Brasilia, the two Hawksbill turtles we tagged earlier this month, are getting good press, in part because Hawksbills are more commonly found in the Caribbean than in the Pacific. In fact, Karen is the first Hawksbill ever to be tagged on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast.
El Nuevo Diario:
Dos tortugas marinas de la especie Carey, especie muy común en el Caribe, asombraron a un par de científicos extranjeros por haberlas encontrados en aguas del Pacífico. Ellos no dejaron pasar la oportunidad para poder conocer sus rumbos marinos, colocándoles en sus caparazones un transmisor digital.
Así se convirtieron en los dos primeros quelonios en salir de las costas del municipio de San Juan del Sur, portando en sus respectivas conchas el dispositivo que permitirá a los científicos controlar de forma electrónica sus movimientos migratorios y dónde anidan.
A una de las tortugas se le bautizó como “Brasilia”, tal como la llamaron decenas de niños, estudiantes universitarios, personal del Refugio de Vida Silvestre La Flor y miembros de la Organización Paso Pacífico.
Dos tortugas carey que llegaron a anidar al Refugio de Vida Silvestre La Flor, en San Juan del Sur, entre las 11:00 p.m. del 29 y la madrugada del 30 de junio, tienen ahora un transmisor satelital que permitirá conocer las rutas que por el mar harán estos quelonios en peligro de extinción
La colocación de estos transmisores satelitales fue hecha por miembros de la Red de Iniciativa Carey del Pacífico Oriental (Icapo), en presencia de estudiantes de primaria de El Ostional, organismos defensores de estas especies como Fauna y Flora Internacional y Paso Pacífico, además de funcionarios del Ministerio del Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales (Marena) Rivas y del Instituto Nicaragüense de Turismo.
The turtles came with the June 29-30 arribada at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge. The satellites were mounted by representatives from ICAPO (the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative). The schoolchildren from Ostional we included in the process helped pick out the turtles’ names.
Published earlier this year, two economists published a paper in the BioOne Online Journal:
The use of performance payments to achieve conservation outcomes is increasingly being used as an alternative to traditional regulatory and development-based approaches in low-income nations. Although payments are increasingly common in terrestrial species and ecosystem conservation initiatives, they are rare in marine conservation efforts such as sea turtle protection. This paper describes sea turtle incentive payment initiatives taking place around the world, most of which are found in projects focusing on nesting beach protection. We find that many of these initiatives have achieved substantial results for a very low annual cost.
You can read the full abstract online and scroll down to find a map of market-based programs around the world. You’ll see we are the only program in Central America.
Local artists, businesses, municipal government, and students celebrated Earth Day with us this week. During the ceremony the mayor of San Juan del Sur committed the municipality to planting 50,000 trees as a contribution to the Meso-American Biological Corridor.
We’re getting ready for our first-ever harbor clean up in San Juan del Sur. Along with the usual coastline clean-up crews, we’ll be working with teams of boaters and divers to pull up, haul away, and inventory inorganic waste on the bottom of the bay (presumably mostly abandoned nets and traps).
Wokring with the Municipality of San Juan del Sur, the Reef Foundation, and San Juan del Sur CANTUR, we’ll host a Harbor Clean-Up Day.
If you’re in the area, and willing to get your hands dirty, join us Saturday, May 9th at 8am in front of Restaurante El Timón. If you plan to clean the harbor floor, bring your diving equipment. If you plan to help clean up the beach or the banks of the Rio San Juan del Sur, come prepared to walk in the sun for a couple hours.
The Cantur San Juan del Sur (the association of small and micro-businesses in the tourism industry) has also written about it (in Spanish) on their blog.
Fellow supporters of the event include these people, organizations, and businesses:
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