Costa Rica moves forward with its nature conservation agenda by signing into law a National Wetlands Policy this week. Luis Guillermo Solís, President of the Republic, attended the launch of this historic public policy together with environmental authorities and representatives of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Costa Rica has more than two thousand wetlands that fall under th...

Thousands of hectares of forested ecosystems have been cleared in Costa Rica to provide cropland for pineapples in recent years, according to what Mauricio Alvarez, president of the Costa Rican Conservationist Federation (FECON) told EFE on Tuesday. "In 15 years, they cut down 725,000 trees, (causing) irreversible damage to the country. Complaints were never able to stand in the way ... althoug...

Contamination and a dirty, unhealthy, environment are making children sick and causing their death worldwide; in Costa Rica, close to one thousand children under 5 years of age die as a consequence of this, the majority are due to respiratory infections. Yet, Costa Rica has better conditions than most countries in the world. According to a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) ...

After several years of work trying to recover the wetlands of Palo Verde National Park in Guanacaste, this park celebrates today the IV Bird Festival. This exotic bird sanctuary has been battling with the typha (typha dominguensis), an invasive plant that affects the wetlands, reducing the extension and depth of the wetlands' water mirrors, which are used by aquatic birds to feed and rest in th...

During a conference in the Costa Rican congress regarding the relation between oil and hydrogen in the country, former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz, current director of Ad Astra Rocket Company, states that Costa Rica has enough energy to generate its own fuel at home and satisfy the demand, without the need to buy petroleum. According to Chang, his organization has been working on achiev...

If you are constantly looking for new places to discover in Costa Rica, this is one you may have not visited before, and a great option to stop by in your next visit to Puntarenas or nearby beaches (this place is 1 hour and 30 minutes from Jaco); if you are vacationing with your kids, they will also fall in love with this place. Located between the communities of Aranjuez and Pithaya in Puntare...

Ponderosa Adventure Park located in Liberia, Guanacaste, confirmed through a press conference that the nine Bengal tigers donated by Mexican Circus Suarez Brothers, already belong to the park and they will continue with the necessary paperwork to get them in the country as soon as possible. The tigers were part of the circus for many years, but after the laws changed in Mexico forbidding the us...

If you love horses, but topes, the traditional Costa Rican horse parades, aren't your thing, you might enjoy the Spanish purebred horse fair starting Thursday, March 2 and lasting through the weekend. The event is free and open to the public, and will run daily from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m (see program here). It will feature equestrian exhibitions, special theme nights, children's entertainment...

Starting with Costa Rica's coasts, and later continuing inland throughout the territory, the National Institute of Innovation and Transfer in Agricultural Technology (INTA, its acronym in Spanish) is about to embark upon a much-needed land-use mapping project. The new maps will prove an essential tool for Costa Rica’s municipal governments to draw up and enforce zoning plans. And zoning plans a...

An investigation by National Geographic will be taken as base by the Costa Rica Government to consider the viability of extending the protection zone at Coco Island. The President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis, had announced in 2016 during his meeting with Ecuador President regarding the Maritime Delimitation Agreement between these two countries, the intention of extending in 10 thousan...

The Ostional National Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica witnesses the arrival of thousands of turtles every year for nesting season, a spectacular natural event which takes place several times a year since four different species of sea turtles take to this place to lay their eggs. This past Monday a calculated amount of almost eleven thousand olive ridley sea turtles made it to this nesting site in...

The thousands of fish that turned up dead along different beaches of the Nicoya Gulf back in February 15, died due to high temperatures and a decrease of oxygen, confirmed the National Animal Health Service (SENASA) after the analysis done by the Center for the Investigation of Microscopic Structures of the University of Costa Rica. According to the different analysis done, the temperatures in ...

The United Nations launched Thursday a global campaign directed at governments, companies and consumers to reduce plastic residues in oceans. The campaign "Clean Seas" was launched during the World Ocean Summit that will continue until Friday in Nusa Dua, in the Indonesian Island of Bali, the UN said in a statement. "It is time to tackle the plastic problem that blights our oceans. Plastic p...

—Currently a situation of rivalry between government institutions in Costa Rica hinders efforts to improve small-scale fisheries, found a case study on Costa Rica. A report released this week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Department and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Fisheries Expert Group analyzed the role o...

The close to 300 people that were in the limits of the Corcovado National Park in the Osa Peninsula since last Sunday and that threatened to enter the park, left voluntarily and peacefully after sustaining conversations with different Government officials. Authorities from the Ministry of Public Security, the Osa Conservation Area and the Presidency, held a meeting with the gold miners and list...

Miami, Florida, Feb. 21 — The manatee population in Florida waters has jumped to 6,620 specimens, a new record for this species of marine mammal, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission (FWC) reported Tuesday. The preliminary tally drawn up by a team of 15 FWC observers amounted to 3,488 live specimens on the east coast of the state and 3,132 in west coast waters, a figure that for the third...

By Wendy Anders In December, scientists from Conservation International (CI) joined efforts with biologist Mario Espinoza of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and several of his graduate students for an intensive ocean data gathering expedition. The site: The waters of the Cocos Island National Park with their thriving shark colonies, and colorful tropical marine life and coral reefs. The p...

Almost 300 people in trucks and buses illegally entered the Corcovado National Park in the Osa Peninsula, through “Los Patos” sector, with the purpose of extracting gold. Men and women of different age groups are part of the group that have already began installing tents and temporary houses inside the National Park and some outside near the Termo river mouth. Eduardo Carrillo, director of the...

With the purpose of increasing the tourism and improving the conditions for national and foreign tourists that visit Corcovado National Park, and in order to provide park rangers with an adequate space to do their work, the Costa Rica Government inaugurated today the new infrastructure at Corcovado in which $2.4 million dollars of the Sustainable Tourism program were invested. The works were ha...

This Friday a group of fishermen found the dead body of an alligator close to the area where thousands of dead fish washed ashore just this past Wednesday. The reptile was found in the Moraga estuary, just 700 meters from the place where sardines were found in the Nicoya Gulf. According to a neighbor of Manzanillo, Puntarenas, finding alligators and crocodiles in the area is not uncommon bu...

The Tempisque Conservation Area (ACT) of the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) was alerted by the Police of the existence of three adult crocodiles trapped in a concrete trough in the mangrove area of Chira Island in Puntarenas, apparently, they had been there for a few days. The artificial troughs are part of an abandoned infrastructure of what used to be a salt evaporation pond. A...

Thousands of dead fish, mostly sardines but also sea bass, are covering several small beaches in the Nicoya Gulf since Tuesday night. Executive president of the Costa Rica Fishing and Aquaculture Institute (Incopesca), Gustavo Meneses, confirmed to national media that the affected area is of around 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) along several small beaches and the Moraga estuary in Puntarenas The...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican border police have had their hands full trying to stop the flow of sickly equines near the northern border with Nicaragua. Apparently the animals were being smuggled into Costa Rica for sale under the guise of beef, said the Public Security Ministry. So far in February, officials report having confiscated 41 animals in three different captures. The horses, plus...

The Acosta Orchid Association will hold its 14th Annual Orchid Show this weekend, and invites all orchid enthusiasts to attend the internationally juried competition. This show, one of the country’s largest orchid displays, is open to viewers from Friday, February 17 - Sunday, February 19 from 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. in the gymnasium of the Desamparados Olympic Village. The association meets r...

Far away from their nerve-wracking days as a spectacle for the public, some 50 chimpanzees live together in Sorocaba, a small Brazilian town repurposed as a refuge for big primates recovering from a traumatic life in zoos and circuses. High up a cement tower, a 20-year-old chimpanzee named Dolores jumps compulsively, claps her hands and screams incessantly, even as her fellow chimps regard her wi...

By Wendy Anders A 55-year-old Costa Rican man was described by local media as being in “stable condition” after being bitten by a crocodile several times in his left leg yesterday evening at Herradura beach near Jacó along Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast. Firefighter rescuers were called from the local Garabito station to aid just before 6:00 p.m., said Costa Rica’s Channel 7 Teletica new...

By Wendy Anders Last week, a Costa Rican court delivered a historic sentence, and for the first time served criminal charges for the illegal practice of shark finning. The court sentenced a Taiwanese business owner to prison over a haul of illegally hacked-off shark fins destined for sale abroad, officials and environmentalists said last Thursday, Feb. 9. The verdict, handed down last...

The Tarcoles River is home to around 50 to 60 crocodiles; many tourists make a stop on the bridge here, known as “the crocodile bridge” to take pictures of these impressive animals. However, the health of the reptiles has been a concern for quite some time, as locals have reported the crocodiles are very thin and apparently malnourished. This past Monday one of them was captured with the purpos...

Coast Guard officials in Quepos, Puntarenas near Manuel Antonio National Park on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast found a surprise visitor on their gate when they arrived for work yesterday morning: a three-toed sloth who appeared to be pregnant, reported the agency. Sloths are clumsy and slow, and therefore very vulnerable, on the ground. Their habitat is the canopies of small- and medium-he...

By Wendy Anders The recent birth of four Bengal tigers in El Salvador’s Fundación Refugio Salvaje (Wild animal refugee foundation, FURESA) made headlines in Asia, but wild-animal-loving readers in Costa Rica might take interest in the cubs from a different angle. The Asian tiger is endangered with only an estimated 2,500 living in the wild, mainly in India, according to the World Wildlife Fu...

In response to a constitutional appeal (Recurso de Amparo) filed by the Costa Rican Conservation Federation and the Workers Union of the Ministry of Environment, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala IV) ordered Costa Rican authorities to elaborate a plan to get rid of the invaders of the Corcovado National Park, who through logging, the extraction of gold, and hunting are causing ...

The Agriculture Department has removed animal welfare inspection reports, enforcement records and other information about the treatment of animals from its website, citing privacy and other laws.  Tanya Espinosa, a spokeswoman for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the information was removed from the site around 11 a.m. Friday. She would not say if the removal was temporary ...

By Wendy Anders Even in a crowded San José, Costa Rica shanty, a police patrol can become an unexpected wildlife adventure. Yesterday afternoon, public safety officials found themselves rescuing a colorful keel-billed toucan from the southern Costa Rican district of Alajuelita, reported police, who said the event is the result of a bolstered wildlife protection initiative by police. Last ...

Specially trained dolphins and a marine sanctuary are to be used in a bid to save the critically endangered vaquita, a rare porpoise endemic to Mexican waters whose numbers are believed to have fallen to less than three dozen. The goal is to capture some vaquitas and place them in a temporary sanctuary until it is safe for them to return to the northern part of the Gulf of California, said Lore...

—ICE, the state electric company, has a comprehensive environmental protection program which offsets carbon emissions while at the same time aiding their energy production. By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE, in Spanish) is using satellite imagery to identify priority areas for reforestation, said Rodolfo Quirós, ICE’s forest management coordinator. Over the past d...

Despite a ban on the export of fins from the endangered hammerhead shark in effect in Costa Rican since March 2015, a large shipment has been readied for export to Asia, said Randall Arauz, spokesperson for the international marine conservation organization, Fins Attached. Smalley Development S.A. has been working to fill an order for 690 kilos of hammerhead shark fins, the international trade ...

The repair of damages in wildlife protected areas will be of over 4.5 million USD The Ministry of Energy and Environment, estimates that repairing the damages caused by hurricane Otto will have a cost of close to ¢2,437 million colones (almost 4.5 million USD). The intervention will focus in the Conservation Area of Tortuguero, North Arenal Huetar, Arenal Tempisque, Guanacaste and Osa. The i...

Jan. 26 — A diesel pipeline in Iowa ruptured Wednesday morning, sending tens of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to pool on a local farm, but officials say it appears none made it to any water supply before clean-up operations started. Magellan Midstream Partners shut down its diesel pipeline running through north-central Iowa on Wednesday after it ruptured for an unknown reason, spewing 138...

The Colorado based non-profit Fins Attached Marine Research and Conservation (Fins Attached), announces a new partnership with renowned Costa Rican biologist Randall Arauz. Over the next three years, Arauz will consult with Fins Attached as their International Policy and Development Specialist in an effort to install science based marine conservation and management policy in the Eastern Pacific, a...

By Wendy Anders The reintroduction of a bill that would allow ocean trawling has environmental groups in Costa Rica up in arms at the government’s support for such practices. “Trawling is the most destructive fishing technique, and there are no studies anywhere in the world that demonstrate its sustainability,” said a coaltion of 15 environmental groups, who noted that the draft of law 19,83...