Source: Starbucks At the Starbucks 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders this week, president and chief operating officer Kevin Johnson played a video of the company's agricultural research center in Costa Rica to highlight the company’s emphasis on creating a sustainable supply of coffee for future generations. Johnson announced that Starbucks in on track to donate 20 million rust-resistant ...

Nutrivida By Anne Salter. SEUK UK Social Enterprise News Release - As a part of the British Embassy programme ‘Exporting Social Enterprises’, in February 2016 Social Enterprise UK traveled to San Jose to represent the UK social enterprise sector in Costa Rica. The week included conferences, meetings with government, press, charities and social enterprises to discuss the opportunities for the mo...

Wikimedia Commons The current drought conditions experienced in various regions of Costa Rica may extend well into May and early June; however, substantial rainfall may cause floods and landslides once the green season takes hold. According to a recent press conference conducted by the National Meteorology Institute of Costa Rica (Spanish initials: IMN), the 2016 green season will feature h...

Wikimedia Commons Miami, Mar 17 (EFE).- SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. said Thursday it was ending its killer whale shows and would offer visitors new "natural orca encounters" at its theme parks. The marine mammals will not be released in the wild because "these orcas could not survive in oceans that include environmental concerns such as pollution and other man-made threats," SeaWorld said ...

Wikimedia Commons British Embassy Costa Rica News Release - On Wednesday 2 March, the Deputy Head of Mission of the British Embassy, Melanie Smart, attended a workshop organised by the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) at its headquarters in Turrialba, which was also attended by more than 90 Costa Rican livestock producers. The workshop was organised as part...

Leo and Zana Finkenbinder. Source: Olivet Nazarene University Olivet Nazarene University Press Release - An innovative educational and research facility in a Costa Rica cloud forest has been named for Dr. Leo Finkenbinder, zoology professor at Olivet Nazarene University, and his wife, Zana. The couple has worked for more than three decades in that region to advance scientific knowledge and eco...

New York (March 3, 2016)—With support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have embarked on an ambitious plane-based survey to gauge the influence of humans and their livestock on the largest remaining forests in Central America. Dubbed the “Central American Megaflyover,” the project is gathering detailed images of the largest five rem...

By Petter Lindgren - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons Alarmed tourists evacuated the beach at Playa Herradura this weekend after a shark suddenly broke through the surf and landed right on the waterline at high tide.   According to a news report published by online news daily CRHoy.com on Sunday, the shark was identified as a thresher shark, a member of the pelagic Alopiidae...

Source: UCI University of California Press Release - Irvine, Calif., March 7, 2016 — On a cool, fog-shrouded mountain of Costa Rica, University of California, Irvine biologist Caitlin Looby is finding that warming temperatures are becoming an increasing problem for one of the most ecologically diverse places on Earth. Seeking to determine how shifts in the tropical mountain cloud forest eco...

Source: UNDP United Nations Development Programme Press Release - One of the world’s biggest pineapple producing countries – Costa Rica – has officially adopted a widely endorsed action plan to tackle serious social and environmental concerns in this critical sector, worth US$ 800 million to the national economy. Agrochemical run-off into water sources is a key issue that the plan will targ...

Wikimedia Commons archive photo Mexico City, Mar 5 (EFE).- Mexico's National Protected Natural Areas Commission, or Conanp, has reported the sighting of an albino whale in waters of the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve that was last spotted by Mexican authorities more than five years ago when it was still a calf. During the annual whale census taken by Conanp in that northwestern area of the c...

Wikimedia Commons Buenos Aires, Mar 2 (EFE).- A total of 23 Franciscana dolphins have been found dead in recent days on different beaches in Argentina, prompting an investigation. That figure was confirmed to EFE Wednesday by the Mundo Marino foundation, which received reports of the dolphin deaths and has arranged for studies to determine why the animals lost their lives. "They've appea...

Justin Bieber performs in 2011. Wikimedia Commons San Jose, Feb 25 (EFE).- A Costa Rican animal rescue center invited singer Justin Bieber to visit it, learn the importance of letting wild animals live free and stop buying monkeys. Vanessa Lizano, who heads the Rescue Center in Tilaran, in northern Costa Rica, told EFE on Thursday that she does not know if Bieber will accept her invitation,...

Source: Sea Shepherd BAJA CALIFORNIA, Mexico – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has launched a video of this weekend's rescue of a humpback whale, entangled in an illegal gillnet. The video received over 113,000 views on Facebook after its first day, almost 4,000 shares and hundreds of excited comments from fans. In total, over 543,000 people have been exposed to the video on Facebook. The Se...

File photo HSI Press Release - The Costa Rican Minister of Environment presented the country’s official stance on wildlife, stating that wildlife issues are a priority to the nation. During a press conference, Minister Edgar Gutiérrez highlighted the importance of respecting wildlife in a country where tourist activities are developed around its natural resources and are one of Costa Rica’s ma...

Pixabay Public Domain Coffee responsibly grown in a rain forest farm in Costa Rica will be showcased by a major Ontario university. York University’s annual fair trade fair will take place Wednesday, Feb. 24 in the Bear Pit near Central Square from 10am to 4pm. The fair will feature a range of fair trade products including arts and crafts, coffee and tea, chocolate, t-shirts and more. In ad...

Source: Sloth Institute Nature’s Miracle Orphans, a special program produced for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has twice visited Costa Rica to tell the story of Monster, a female sloth rescued by primatologist Sam Trull of the Sloth Institute, located in Manuel Antonio. The BBC program is an observational documentary series following orphaned baby animals and the dedicated peo...

San Jose, Feb 18 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- Government representatives and environmentalists attending the second meeting of signatories to the United Nations Environment Program's Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Sharks, or Sharks MOU, agreed to work to enlist coastal communities in protecting the marine predators. A total of 22 species of sh...

(Photo courtesy of Four Seasons) Rep. Suray Carrillo (FA) has presented a bill to Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly that would prohibit the use of potable water to irrigate golf courses. “I consider it urgent to amend the which dates from 1953, to update the protection measures of water as a finite and strategic resource vital to humans; our country must learn that we cannot continue using...

San José, Costa Rica (February 15, 2016) – A group of experts from international conservation organizations is announcing a new strategy for combating the decline of sharks and closely related rays, while warning that the rays are even more threatened and less protected than the higher profile sharks. The call for greater inclusion of rays in conservation action plans is part of “Global Priorit...

(Photo courtesy of Toyota) The director for distribution systems at the National Power and Light Company (CNFL), Allan Blanco promised Costa Rica lawmakers last week that CNFL could quickly deploy the necessary infrastructure to support a bill before the Legislative Assembly that proposes significant incentives for motorists who choose to purchase electric and hybrid vehicles. Appearing bef...

Nicaragua’s Momotombo volcano ended a 110-year period of inactivity with a fiery eruption on December 2, 2015 (Photo courtesy of INETER, Dec 2 2015) Authorities in Nicaragua activated emergency plans after explosions occurred at both the Momotombo and Telica volcanoes on Saturday. Meanwhile, the Masaya volcano has also witnessed an increase in seismic activity in recent days. According t...

Quito, Feb 14 (EFE).- A Mexican man who tried to smuggle 11 iguanas out of Ecuador's Galapagos Islands has been sentenced by a judge to serve two years in prison and pay a fine of $20,000, Galapagos National Park said in a Twitter post Sunday. Gustavo Eduardo Toledo Albarran was arrested last year when he tried to smuggle the marine and land iguanas out of Santa Cruz Island. "The judge from ...

(Photo courtesy of Toyota) Members of the Legislative Assembly’s Commission on Government and Administration heard arguments in favor of Legislative Bill 19744, known as the Incentive and Promotion of Electric Transport Act, this week. The bill proposes significant incentives for motorists who choose to purchase electric and hybrid vehicles, including a complete exemption from import duty a...

LIMA (EFE) The Pacific Ocean washes plastic waste, wood, pipes and other construction materials every day onto Peru's Carpayo beach, considered Latin America's dirtiest stretch of coast with tons of refuse and waste from the capital, Lima. No other beach in Latin America gets the 2.8 kilos (6.2 pounds) of trash per square meter (10.8 sq. feet) collected from Carpayo during the most recent c...

Areli Arevalo Facebook On Saturday afternoon, geologists at the Observatory on Volcanology and Seismology at the National University of Costa Rica (Spanish acronym: OVSICORI) reported a new eruption at the Turrialba Volcano, the most active colossus in our country. The volcanic event took place about ten minutes before 2:00 pm during a warm, yet extremely windy, afternoon. The seismographic...

Upper left: Ringed kingfisher. Bottom left: Strawberry poison-dart frog. Center left: A bunch of bananas and a black-cheeked woodpecker. (Aforementioned photos by Kenshiro Imamura.) Center-right top: Agouti. Center-right bottom: Baird's tapir. Right: Brown-throated tree-toed sloth. Source: JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency News Release - In the biodiversity hot spot of Costa Rica...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 3 (EFE).- A young gray whale (Eschrictius robustus) that beached itself in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California Sur was rescued by Profepa federal environmental protection agency personnel, officials said. The whale was found at El Mariscal, a fishing camp on the Laguna Ojo de Liebre in Guerrero Negro, a community outside the city of Mulege, t...

Demi Lovato Instagram Miami, Feb 1 (EFE).- Actor Wilmer Valderrama on the weekend celebrated his 36th birthday in an original and "savage" way thanks to his girlfriend, singer and actress Demi Lovato, who took him to spend the entire day with a pack of wolves. The star of the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn" looked happy with the wolves in photos Lovato shared on her Instagram accoun...

Wikimedia Commons An attempt to plant transgenic cotton for research purposes in Costa Rica is being challenged in court. According to a news report recently filed by Carlos Arrieta Perez of online news daily El Pais, a legislator from Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and a few non-profit groups dedicated to environmental protection claim that the transgenic cotton seeds contain traces of Agent Ora...

Miravalles geothermal power plant WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With demand for clean electricity on the rise, international attention has turned to geothermal energy with a highlight being the declaration of 38 countries forming the Global Geothermal Alliance at the Paris Climate Conference. Building on this momentum, the Geothermal Energy Association's (GEA) U.S. and International Geothermal ...

Rain forest in Costa Rica OSU Press Release. CORVALLIS, Ore. – As tropical forests become increasingly broken up by roads, farm fields, pastures and other developments, corridors of trees provide vital pathways for pollinators and contribute to a rich diversity of plant species, scientists have confirmed. A study at the Las Cruces Biological Station in Costa Rica shows that when forests are...

Source: iCafe BioNovelus, a clean tech company that aims to offer a portfolio of green solutions for various applications, recently received positive results from lab and field trials showing BioNovelus’ technology as an effective, eco-friendly biopesticide against Hemileia vastatrix, the fungus named “coffee rust,” or “roya” in Central and South America. The company hopes to put this eco-f...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, Jan 23 (EFE).- Chevron Corp. hailed a District Court of The Hague ruling in favor of the U.S. energy supermajor in its legal battle with Ecuador, which had sought to nullify arbitral rulings handed down against the country in connection with a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment. "Today's decision reinforces the integrity of the arbitral proceedings and ens...

Pixabay Commons The Second Meeting of Signatories (MOS2) to the Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Sharks will be held in the capital city of Costa Rica in mid-February. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, our country became signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) with regard to shark conse...

Source: NASA00 Washington, Jan 19 (EFE).- NASA published photographs of the first flower grown on board the International Space Station as part of a 2-year experiment to raise plants in space. Although astronauts had grown lettuce and other vegetables in their space garden, this is the first time that flowers - zinnias, in particular, which are edible - have bloomed outside Earth's gravity....

BirdSongSOS.com Imagine a world without birdsong. Su Rynard’s wide-ranging and contemplative documentary THE MESSENGER explores our deep-seated connection to birds and warns that the uncertain fate of songbirds might mirror our own. Moving from the northern reaches of the Boreal Forest to the base of Mount Ararat in Turkey and from the streets of New York to the coffee farms of Costa Rica, ...

Alleged Greenwashing by Infinito Gold VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Jan. 15, 2016) - Infinito Gold Ltd. ("Infinito") (NEX:IG.H) is pleased to announce that it entered into a litigation funding agreement effective December 21, 2015 ("LFA). Under the terms of the LFA, the funder has agreed to provide non-recourse financing to Infinito in connection with the legal costs of Infini...

Source: Starbucks The Starbucks Origin Experience takes partners (employees) from behind the counters of stores, corporate offices and roasting plants and brings them to work alongside farmers in coffee growing regions. The program offers a valuable perspective for people who have a passion for coffee, but may not have a connection to the distant places where coffee is grown. Starbucks phot...

Wikimedia Commons Miami, Jan 1 (EFE).- A record 41 endangered Florida panthers were killed in 2015, mostly as a result of collisions with motor vehicles, state authorities said Friday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, said the new record was attributable to the state's growing human population, a demographic trend that is leading to greater contact between peop...