An anti-GMO activist in San Francisco. Source: Wikimedia Commons Asuncion, May 24 (EFE).- About 100 farmers with peasant organizations on Tuesday left their family farms in Paraguay's interior to attend a fair in downtown Asuncion, where they displayed their native seeds, the basis for their resistance against the advance of genetically modified crops, or GMOs. The seeds of Paraguayan stapl...

SCOTTSDALE, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / May 23, 2016 / BioNovelus executives President and CEO Jean Ekobo, and CFO, Mark Johnson, will be in Costa Rica the week of May 23, 2016 touring and evaluating five coffee farms participating in a Pilot Test that has revealed CR-10 to be an effective coffee leaf rust killer. Additionally, BioNovelus has signed a Letter of Intent with a prominent Costa Rican distrib...

Longline tuna haul. Source: Greenpeace. FAO Media Release - 16 May 2016, Rome - Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is about to become much more difficult thanks to the imminent entry into force of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), a ground-breaking international accord championed by FAO. Now that the required threshold has been reached, with 30 Members having formally...

The Turrialba on May 5. OVSICORI A series of powerful eruptions by the hyperactive Turrialba volcano have left the Central Valley of Costa Rica coated with ultra-fine ash, prompting savvy street merchants to offer surgical masks at busy pedestrian intersections in the capital city. Street sales of surgical masks have been brisk in San Jose ever since the Ministry of Public Health (Spanish i...

Source: Zoo Ave Field officers from the Ministry of the Environment (Spanish initials: MINAE) rescued a pair of baby coyotes that were found separated from their mother and pack in Guacimo, a farming community in the Caribbean region of Limon. The two cubs were transported to the Zoo Ave Wildlife Rescue Center in La Garita, province of Alajuela. According to a news report filed by Alejandro...

Conservationists from the Leatherback Trust, an international non-profit conservation organization that protects leatherback turtles and other sea turtle species from extinction, recently released rare drone footage of a female olive ridley swimming away from a beach in Costa Rica. The nesting event was filmed in Las Baulas National Park, located in the Playa Grande sector of the Guanacaste pro...

(Courtesy) NEW YORK/FRANKFURT (Reuters) German drugs and chemicals group Bayer has made an unsolicited takeover proposal to U.S. seeds company Monsanto, aiming to create the world's biggest agricultural supplier and take advantage of converging pesticides and seeds markets. Monsanto disclosed the approach on Wednesday before Bayer confirmed its move, though neither released proposed terms. ...

Source: Starbucks NEW YORK, May 16, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fast Company today announced its annual ranking of the 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2016, honoring an influential and diverse group of leading thinkers around the globe. Each year, the magazine's editors present an all-new list of 100 visionaries chosen according to a proprietary methodology (honorees can't repeat, and any...

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) May 11, 2016 - In a recent Bird-X blog post, the company explains how it helped preserve history at the National Theatre of Costa Rica with the installation of its bird shock track system, Avishock™. In April, Fuera Aves PRO, part of the JAMUVI Group of companies, installed 300 meters of Avishock™, on the theatre’s rooftop ledges to stop birds from landing and defecating on ...

Serenity Gardens Costa Rica BriefingWire.com, 5/09/2016 - For those who dream of living with nature in Costa Rica, the Serenity Gardens Eco-Village provides a unique opportunity. An eco-village is a growing trend in green living; an international community with a focus on sustainable living. In an eco-village like Serenity Gardens, like-minded people come together to live as a community co-op....

Fer-de-lance snake, found in the jungles of Costa Rica By Carol Blair Vaughn We should care about the Reptilian Top Ten. Here's why: Scientists from Oxford University (U.K.) and from Tel Aviv University (Israel) have created a top ten list of the world’s most popular reptiles. You call this science? It turns out, that it actually IS science. The research team discovered valuable in...

Swansea University Swansea University Media Release - Becky Cliffe, a PhD researcher from the College of Science, has spent the past five years researching sloths at the world-famous Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica. During her time there, Becky has compiled data on a number of poorly and orphaned animals suffering from limb deformities and albinism. These are genetic problems she believes are...

Smithsonian Institute PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed on Monday that a scarab beetle that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists intercepted in a shipment of Costa Rican pineapples is the first recorded find of this species in Philadelphia. CBP discovered the beetle March 11 in a container of 1,500 cases of fresh pineapples. CBP s...

Workers at the Miravalles geothermal plant in the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, March 14, 2016. TRF/Fabíola Ortiz By Fabiola Ortiz MEXICO CITY/SAN JOSE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Mexico and Costa Rica aim to build on their position as Latin America's leading producers of geothermal power to help meet the challenges they face of curbing planet-warming emissions and making their ene...

Bionovelus SCOTTSDALE, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / May 5, 2016 / BioNovelus, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: ONOV) is pleased to announce the triumph of CR-10, their environmentally friendly fungicide product. Test results in five coffee plantations have proven that biodegradable CR-10 is a coffee rust killer! Coffee rust or "roya" (Hemileia vastatrix) is a devastating fungus that has already cost $2.5B to the coffee...

Confiscated rhino horns. Wikimedia Commons By Jessica Martorell Nairobi, Apr 30 abr (EFE).- Kenya declared war on poachers Saturday with the burning of 105 tons of ivory and 1.35 tons of rhinoceros horns gathered by illegal hunting, which puts at risk the survival of elephants in Africa. Never before has such a huge quantity of ivory been destroyed in Kenya, which reaffirmed with this ac...

File photo from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Senator Loren Legarda of the Philippines called on nations to immediately ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change and stressed on the need to target the more ambitious but safer 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit. Legarda, Global Champion for Resilience of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), made the statement during the pr...

Source: York University TORONTO, April 25, 2016 – The Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University opened its new Lillian Meighen Wright Centre and EcoCampus today in southern Costa Rica, offering students hands-on experiential learning from deep within a rainforest. The 400-square-metre Lillian Meighen Wright Centre overlooks the Peñas Blancas River from its prime location on York U...

2016 Rio Olympics Logo Rio de Janeiro, Apr 25 (EFE).- Around 100 days before the start of the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games the condition of the lakes and bays where sailing and rowing competitions will take place are "between depressing and tragic," environmental consultant Mario Moscatelli told EFE. The ecologist, who has spent more than 20 years fighting to improve the environment in...

Source:: Gisele Bundchen Costa Rica One of the most glamorous part-time residents of Costa Rica decided to honor Earth Day by planting a tree in the backyard of her beach mansion. In a recent photo uploaded to her massively followed Instagram account, former Victoria's Secret model Gisele Bundchen can be seen planting with the help of her two children. Ms. Bundchen, who retired from the run...

The small earthquakes late Saturday and early Sunday formed a line between the two volcanoes. (OVSICORI) A series of 75 small earthquakes that were recorded in a period of just 12 hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning in a nearly straight line between Costa Rica’s Irazu and Turrialba volcanoes have some people worried that the so-called “seismic swarm” could be the precursor to viole...

John Cocgh - Flickr Commons Managua, Apr 22 (EFE).- Nicaragua is undergoing the most severe environmental crisis in its recent history, a group of 15 non-governmental organizations said during the presentation of a report coinciding with Earth Day. The drastic reduction or disappearance of 34 rivers, the near-complete evaporation of at least four lakes, the loss of nearly 6,000 hectares (14...

Rainforest in Costa Rica By Carol Blair Vaughn Friday, April 22nd, is Earth Day, an international celebration of education about environmental issues that began in the United States in 1970, marking the birth of the environmental movement. It is now celebrated by over 1 billion people worldwide, including here in Costa Rica, as a day of action in support of environmental protection of our p...

Wikimedia Commons Forensic investigators from the medical examiner's office in Costa Rica are trying to determine the ophidian species that killed a 46-year old woman in a remote area of Los Chiles canton, province of Alajuela. According to a news report filed by Alexander Mendez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the woman was a student at the Unified Center of Adult Education (Spanish acronym...

(Facebook / Mauricio Camareno) A group of local surfers in Boca Barranca, Puntarenas, on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast, rescued a baby pilot whale that had become stuck in the mouth of a river early Wednesday morning. Mauricio Camareno, one of the surfers who discovered the baby whale shortly after 5 a.m., said that they first noticed what appeared to be a “black lump” near the bank of...

Wikimedia Commons The Honorable Noel Holder, Agriculture Minister of Guyana arrived in Costa Rica on April 11 as part of a visit to discuss Agricultural priorities among the two countries. Among the discussions held, the main topic will be the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture’s (IICA) Country Strategy 2014-2018. The Agriculture Minister is accompanied by Chief Executi...

Wikimedia Commons Cap-Net UNDP News Release - The Central American Network of Engineering Institutions (REDICA), along with the University of Costa Rica (UCR), the Euro-American Consortium and the British Embassy in Costa Rica, have been interested in the development of applied research on gasification from biomass waste from the cultivation of pineapple in Costa Rica.   The project...

Wikimedia Commons In just one week, more than 700 hectares (1,729 acres) of dry tropical forest have been affected by wildfires in the Conservation Area of Guanacaste. Flames have run through three major national parks of Costa Rica: Guanacaste, Santa Rosa and Rincón de la Vieja, and officials are investigating leads that suggest this may have been an act of arson.   According to a ...

Wikimedia Commons Santiago, Apr 6 (EFE).- The Chilean navy on Wednesday detected a huge gathering of uncounted thousands of jellyfish - some 16 kilometers (10 miles) long - off the coast of the South American nation. The navy said that the unusual phenomenon was discovered when the navy was making an overflight of a portion of the Chilean coast. Between San Pedro Bay and the Farellones L...

Flickr Commons - Activ Solar SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- The first face-to-face module of the distance learning programme Especialización en Energías Renovables took place from the 22nd to the 26th February 2016. The Especialización is offered jointly by the EARTH University in Costa Rica and the German expert in capacity building Renewables Academy AG (RENAC). This one-year inter...

UNEP News Release - Cartagena de Indias, 31 March 2016 – Latin American and Caribbean Ministers of Environment committed on Thursday to accelerate collective action on a set of priorities ranging from climate change and air quality to safe management of chemicals, ahead of the second UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-2), which will convene in Nairobi, Kenya, in May. The ministers and high-level rep...

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle Bacardi, the world’s largest privately held spirits company, announced on March 22, World Water Day, that it launched an in-house initiative to remove plastic straws and stirrers at company events, with the hope that this practice will extend to bars and restaurants around the world. Commented Mike Gibaldi of the environmental group Surfrider, “As a large corporate c...

Waco Mammoth Museum - Photo By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0 Washington, Mar 29 (EFE).- Archaeologists have found a mammoth skull and two tusk fragments in a sand pit in northeastern Oklahoma, media reports said. The Oklahoma Archeological Survey, or OAS, identified the animal as a Columbian mammoth, one of the last species of that giant mammal to inhabit both North America and Central Ameri...

A green sea turtle that was seen tied to and being dragged behind a car in Limon, Costa Rica in a shocking online video on Tuesday was subsequently tortured and killed, according to the environmental activist and lawyer who uploaded the video. Alvaro Sagot told the Spanish EFE news agency that in the full version of the video, the sea turtle is tortured and killed in a “very cruel” manner after...

Costa Rican environmentalist Jairo Mora was murdered in 2013. (ARCHIVE / Photo courtesy of WIDECAST) This is a developing news story.  Stay tuned to The Costa Rica Star for updates. A criminal court in Costa Rica found four out of seven defendants guilty of murder and other crimes on Tuesday, sentencing all four to the maximum sentence permitted by law and concluding the second trial in the...

A shocking video, which shows a live sea turtle tied to and being dragged behind a car, sparked outrage in Costa Rica and social media on Tuesday.   The video is believed to have been filmed recently in Moin, Limon, on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The vehicle’s license plate is clearly visible in the video, which could assist authorities in identifying the subjects in the video, though...

Source: Ad Astra Rocket Co. – Ad Astra Rocket Company, Costa Rica's most renowned aerospace firm, is currently generating 100% of its operating power requirement with renewable solar energy. The milestone was achieved in mid-March as the company’s new 76.86 kW solar array was formally connected to the facility and certified by representatives from Costa Rica’s electric power utility (ICE)....

Source: Zoo Ave Discovery Channel unveiled two additional documentaries that will air as specials under the Discovery Impact banner, a slate of groundbreaking documentaries focusing on humankind’s impact on the environment and what individuals and society as a whole can do to solve some of the largest problems facing the planet.  Airing May 19, SONIC SEA highlights the continued emergence of noi...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A six-year old boy and an adult male are the latest victims of attacks by large reptiles in Costa Rica. The incidents took place during Holy Saturday in the communities of Parrita and Los Chiles. According to a news report filed by Tatiana Gutierrez of online news daily Costa Rica Hoy, a six-year old boy was rushed to the public hospital in Quepos after he was brut...

Bionovelus The Hemileia vastatrix fungus, “roya” or “coffee rust,” can be devastating when conditions are especially favorable for rapid growth. The coffee rust has increased in 2015 mainly due to climate change. The economic impact is over $2.5 billion per year, along with over 500,000 jobs lost in Costa Rica and across Central America, and an increase of illegal immigration to the USA. Co...