The government of Japan this week donated around $100,000 to provide better tools in the fight against illegal fishing in and around Isla del Coco.  Illegal fishing has received more attention as of late, mainly due to the National Geographic documentary as part of the Ocean Now project that spent time recently diving at Coco to explore new species and highlight the need to protect the rich marine biodiversity of this area.  The Isla del Coco was declared “Patrimonio Natural de Humanidad” in 1997.  The money will be used to hire another 10 park rangers and to create better housing for the island rangers.  The currently available lodging, known as Villa Beatriz, is not adequate to house the additional park rangers.  The donation will also be used to purchase equipment such as a generator, life rafts, and a mechanical apparatus that allows rangers to discover illegal fishing lines that will be used in the patrol boats known as Cocos Patrol and Faico II.  Also the money will be used to install a hydroelectric turbine that will convert water from a river on the island to electricity, which is a project of ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) that studies show presents a very low environmental impact on the island. 

Link to Article in La Nación

Costa Rica decided thirty years ago to make the waters around Isla del Coco, located about 350 miles off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, a protected area.  And a recent expedition by National Geographic researchers entitled Ocean Now, reached the conclusion that the idea has proven to be a very good one.  In these waters there thrives a mind boggling variety of marine life, with a quantity of large predator fish measuring 3.5 tons per hectare.  For this reason the researchers concluded that this marine ecosystem is one of the healthiest in all of earth’s oceans.  However, just a few kilometers outside of the protected area, there is a completely different story.  In areas like Las Gemelas, a submerged mountain, there does not exist any thing comparing to the rich diversity around Coco.  The reason is because fishing in this area goes on unrestricted and much of it illegally.  Laura Chinchilla, who attended the premier of the film La Isla de los tiburones, vowed to take more expansive action to protect the marine life in these waters, maybe even by increasing the area of the protected zone so that marine life can travel from Las Gemelas to Isla del Coco without getting caught in illegal fishing traps.  The documentary film about the recent National Geographic expedition will be able to be seen on television in the U.S. beginning April on the channel NatGeo Wild. 

Link to Article in La Nación

Ocean Now Web Site

So says Bryson Robertson and Hugh Patterson who are sailing around surfing, diving and raising awareness of the need to keep our ocean waters and beaches garbage free.  The name of their boat is Khulula and their goal is to navigate the coasts of the world in search of adventure and in bringing their message of ecological purity in a mission they have dubbed, Ocean Gybe (the latter word signifying a change in direction, or repentance of sorts).  So far they have visited 30 countries and their rating of Costa Rica wasn’t too flattering…in fact they said it was just as dirty as the others.  Moreover, the junk, plastic, Styrofoam, and other unsavory materials, is not coming from other places and drifting onto Costa Rica’s innocent shores…no ticos and others who frequent those same shores are dumping the stuff there.  The beaches the duo visited during their time in Costa Rica were Playas Herradura, Golfito, Dominical, and Hermosa, which all receive heavy tourist traffic.  They noticed certain peculiar things, such as the fact that areas near hotels were clean, but venture a ways away and there was the filth.  Also they noticed that in some places there seemed to be an effort to collect garbage in plastic bags, that were then left on the beach?  The duo has already logged some 40,000 kilometers of coast in 30 countries where they are surfing, diving and collecting garbage washed up on the coastal shores for analysis of where it came from and its potential toxic effect on the ocean waters.  The plan is to use the information to educate young people on the need to keep the ocean clean.  Alvaro Morales, director of Cimar (Centro de Investigación de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología) has been saying since the late 80’s that Costa Rica needs to take action to clean up its act in terms of garbage collection both on the coast and inland.  One thing noted in particular is the need for people to reduce their use of plastic, which is a major source of contamination of both the land and sea.

Link to Article in La Nación

Read an interesting article in La Nación today (from the February 13th issue) in which bird experts are reporting seeing species of birds in the Rincón de la Vieja National Park that had before only been seen in other areas of the country.  Bird experts, or ornithologists, stated that reasons for the new sightings could be due to various factors such as air currents, climate, deforestation, and inadequate food supplies.  However, another, and perhaps more plausible, reason given is that there hasn’t been a thorough accounting of the birds in this area for a long time.  A recent counting cites 204 species.  Another counting is scheduled for next April.  The recent counting, which was conducted in September of 2009, found species not known to Rincón, but only common to the Central Valley, Caribbean and other areas.  However, this is based on reports such as the Guía de Aves de Costa Rica by Alexander Skutch, which is dated by some twenty years.  José Batalla, of the Hacienda Guachipelin, a hotel near the park, stated that findings of wider diversity in the birds of the region could be good for tourism.  He stated that while most of the tourism in the area is adventure related, findings such as this could attract more birding enthusiasts, which other areas of the country count as strong tourism draws. 

Link to Article in La Nación

Much is written about Costa Rica’s biodiversity of plants and animals.  One of the primary examples is the variety of orchid species one can find in the county.  The orchid is the largest family of flowering plants with as many as 25,000 different species.  In Costa Rica 1,500 of those can be found.  Well that list continues to increase as botanists from the University of Costa Rica have recently discovered three new species in Parque Nacional Tapanti located in Paraiso de Cartago.  The species were found at high altitudes (2,500 meters or more) and are of the family Lepanthes, which contain miniature orchid varieties.  The first is the Lepanthes graciosa with translucent yellowish petals.  The second is the Lepanthes machogaffensis, which has a reddish flower that blooms throughout the year, but only for periods lasting three day.  The third is the Lepanthes pelvis, which has the largest flower of the three and which the scientists described as having no similar apparent relative except in the high Andes mountains of South America.

Link to Article in La Nacion

I have written many times in the past year or more about how the Turrialba volcano has been acting up, belching out tons of sulfuric gases and turning the usually deep green vegetation on its slopes to a ghastly yellow hue.  Well, Turrialba stepped it up a notch recently by showering the inhabitants of its slopes with a curtain of ash.  It seems a new pattern of natural disaster occurrence to begin every new year is emerging (as you may remember, on January 8th of 2009, we had the horrible earthquake that virtually destroyed the community of Cinchona).  The inhabitants of the farming villages along the slopes of the volcano have been evacuated, along with most of the livestock.  All that remains are a patch of domestic animals left behind and those are being rounded up as well.  Will Turrialba really “blow its lid?”  That is the question on the mind of the experts who are hard at work studying its every move of late, and lately there has been a lot of movement, both above and below ground.  There is no doubt that the magma is rising, just how far will it rise is the burning (pardon the pun) question.  New fissures and fumaroles seem to be opening up every passing day.  One of the biggest threats is that the volcano may erupt “laterally” as opposed to vertically and thus pose a much larger threat to nearby communities.  So far there has been little in the way of human physical injury (I did read that one man was overcome with an attack of asthma brought on by the ash) and analysis has shown that the ash, while irritating, poses no immediate physical threat.  But all that could change if things heat up a notch or two above what is already occurring.  Government officials have warned the curious not to try to get close to the colossal for a view, but it sure is tempting.  At just over 11,000 feet in altitude, Turrialba is Costa Rica’s second highest volcano, behind its twin big brother, Irazu.  I have always been intrigued by the enormity and beauty of it.  It used to be one of my favorite weekend getaway places (much like Cinchona used to be).  I also ran tours where I lead tourists down into the crater (Turrialba was the only volcano where you could actually descend into the crater).  I can remember having a friend take me and my bike to the top and the exhilarating feeling of breezing to the bottom with the cool wind in my face and views that seemed to encompass the entire country.  I hope that I will get to enjoy those experiences once again.

This according to experts from the Asociación Ornitológica Costarricense (AOCR) as announced in the most recent edition of their magazine, Zeledonia.  These species aren’t new in the sense that they weren’t before known to science.  They are “new” in the sense that none of them had ever before been seen in Costa Rica.  The first is the “pardela de pascua (scientific, Puffinus nativitatis).  This bird is normally seen around the Hawaiian islands and it is estimated that only around 5,000 remain in existence.  The species was observed in April of this year flying above the ocean surface some 50 kilometers to the west of Cabo Blanco in Puntarenas.  The second is the “azor ventigrís” (scientific, Accipiter poliogaster).  This is a bird of prey and is usually found in tropical forests of low lying areas.  They are found in many parts of South America.  It is known to have a grayish colored breast.  Experts observed this specie in a secondary forest of the river Puerto Viejo, in Sarapiquí.  The third is the “gaviota tridáctila” (scientific, Rissa tridactyla).  This specie is charaterized by its large yellow beak, white head and body, and greyish colored back and wings. This is a bird always found near the ocean, normally of the Northern Hemisphere.  However, bird experts observed this specie in the mouth of the river Tortuguero located in Tortuguero National Park.  The last two birds new to Costa Rica are colibris.  The first is the “veraguan mango” (scientific, Anthracothorax veraguensis).  Previously thought to be unique to Panama, this specie was observed in a garden in Golfito, Puntarenas.  The vergaun mango is listed as a specie in danger of extinction.  The fifth is the specie of colibri (or hummingbird) with the scientific name, Lepidopyga coeruleogularis.  This specie was observed in the same general area as the veraguan mango.  Both species of colibris are generally found feeding on the red flower known as the Erythrina and have a green metalic color with beaks almost as large as their bodies.

Link to Article in La Nación

Costa Rican authorities plan to present their shining example to the world during next weeks World Summit on Climate Change to be held in Copenhagen.  An example of how to achieve economic development along with protecting the environment.  However, such plans may fly in the face of a recent report that Costa Rica is not developing all that sustainable after all.  This according to the country’s own internally developed report entitled Estado de la Nación that was the subject of a recent post in the blog, Strictly Business Costa Rica.  Nevertheless Costa Rica can present some action to back up all the talk, which is more than can be said for many who will be attending, like the U.S. and China for example.  What has Costa Rica done to put some walk into the talk?  Well the creation of multiple areas of environmentally protected territory, which has elevated Costa Rica’s status as a world-class eco-tourism destination.  The Payment for Environmental Services (or PSA) program is another specific measure Costa Rica has taken in which landowners are paid to re-forest instead of de-forest.  A means by which the country has “protected” another 11% of of national territory that is privately owned, or some 626,498 hectares covered by 85 million trees.  All this makes Costa Rica one of the few tropical countries that have been able to reverse the trend of deforestation to the extent that now some 48% of the entire country is covered with forests.  Since 1997 the coverage of territory by forest growth has been increasing at a rate of 0.66% per year.  Finally, the committee that will present at the summit can boast that in Costa Rica 76% of electrical energy is produced with renewable sources (water, wind and geothermal), making the country much less dependent on oil than most others.  Costa Rica has expressed a future commitment to world climate change by vowing to be “carbon neutral” by the year 2021, the so-called program of Paz con la Naturaleza (Peace with Nature). With all that said, I guess Costa Rica does have room to talk.  The President of the Republic, Oscar Arias, is schedule to do just on the 16th of December, the day prior to the summit’s closing.

Link to Article in La Nación

The level of the crater lake of Volcán Poás in Alajuela has this month reached the lowest level recorded in the last 15 years, decreasing by some 20 meters.  This has occurred despite the fact that the area has recently received persistent rainfall.  Expert Raúl Alberto Mora stated that this year the lake has lost some 700,000 cubic meters in total volume.  This fall was only superseded by that in 1994, when the lake completely dried up.  The main problem is that the water in the lake prevents much of the gases from escaping into the atmosphere.  So when the level gets too low the gases cause more problems to the inhabitants of surrounding areas, both to vegetation and potentially to human respiratory systems.  Cited as the main factor for the decrease in the lake level is the high temperature of the water.  On the 25th of November that temperature reached almost 50 degrees Centigrade, whereas the average temperature for volcanic crater lakes is 45 degrees Centigrade.  According to experts when a volcano located in the tropics has a crater lake whose temperature exceeds 45 degrees Centigrade it presents a thermal disequilibrium that signifies a more than normal contribution of gases and heat from within the depths of the volcano.  The result is that the lake may completely dry up, or there may be the phenomenon of Phreatic eruptions (or water and lake sediments), as actually occurred at Poás the 18th of September this year.

Link to Article in La Nación

The web site is the project of MINAET (Ministry of Energy, Environment and Telecommunications), INBio (National Institute of Biodiversity), OET (Organization for Tropical Studies), the Costa Rican National Museum, and SINAC (National System of Areas of Conservation).  The address is www.crbio.cr.  On the site, you can simply key in a search using the common name of any documented plant, animal or insect species and retrieve a wealth of data.  The data includes scientific name, as well as those of closest relatives, where the species can be found, its eating and sleeping habits, and other information.  Quality photos are also displayed.  The site also provides information about Costa Rica’s protected areas, their specific dimensions and existing legislation providing for their restricted use.  The web site is in Spanish, but is written so that lay people, not just scientists, can understand the information.

Link to Article in La Nación