The Instituto Nacional de BIodiversidad (INBio) celebrates this week the 20th anniversary since its founding in 1989.  Since then INBio has worked to catalogue and save the distinct species that exist within Costa Rica and learn what knowledge this vast array of life might impart to the benefit of humanity.  The goal for the next twenty years?  According to Rodrigo Gámez, the organization’s acting president, it is to convert the theme of biodiversity into the axes of Costa Rican culture, including its educational and business processes.  INBio was began by a group of concerned Costa Ricans in an old warehouse located on a coffee farm in Santo Domingo de Heredia.  Over the years that initial humble operation was converted into a highly sophisticated research center as well as a “biodiversity theme park” of sorts, which thousands of locals and tourists now visit annually.  In addition, over the last 20 years, the researchers of INBio have catalogued over 3.5 million different species of flora and fauna.  All this can be viewed at the INBio web site (http://darnis.inbio.ac.cr/).  INBio has also been instrumental in certain legislative processes such as the Ley de Biodiversidad.  Over the years INBio and its programs have been given numerous awards, such as the Príncipe de Asturias en Investigación y Técnica in 1995.  INBio is now recognized around the world for the level of its researce and efforts to protect Costa Rica’s rich biodiversity.  Gámez cited global warming as one of the future centers of focus, as well as “biomimetismo,” which he described in La Nación as the immitation of natural processes without actually extracting anything from nature.

Link to Article in La Nación

An enormous árbol de higuerón (or large fig) located in Cóbano, Puntarenas earned the Exceptional Tree award for 2009 as part of the celebration in Costa Rica of the Día del Árbol that took place on June 15th.  The award was given by experts at the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (InBio).  The gigantic tree measures 21.5 meters in diameter, 40 meters in height, and has a crown of 80 meters that can shelter more than 40 persons under its branches.  The tree is located on the property of Felipe Sequeira Cruz in Cabuya de Cóbano, Puntarenas.  The Árbol Excepcional award was created in 2003 to search out each year a unique specimen of tree with the purpose of highlighting the significant role that trees play in distinct communities.  This tree is of great importance to a wide variety of plant and animal life.  For example, a troop of 10 monos congos (or “howler monkeys”) are nourished from its fruit, as well as many other mammals and insects.  Tree specialist, Isabel Di Mare, told La Nación that this tree is extremely spectacular not only for its aesthetic beauty, but also for its natural contribution.  The great “mother” tree has also “given birth” to several other large, albeit smaller, higueróns located in its shadows.

Link to Article in La Nación

The biologist, James Edwards, has undertaken a difficult task.  That is, to inventory the world’s 1.8 million species of plants and animals in an internet site known as Encyclopedia of Life.  He and another 20 world renowned biologists recently visited Costa Rica to team up with InBio for the effort.  One of the things that must be decided is how to integrate other countries into the effort.  The web site will of course get a boost from joining forces with InBio as it had already catalogued the over 4,000 species of Costa Rica in its own web site (www.inbio.ac.cr) and undertaking InBio completed back in 2004.  Each specie that is added to the encyclopedia will include its principal characteristics, natural history, distribution, and its state of conservation in the country.  The current InBio web site already includes such an inventory of species in Costa Rica and the site (which is completely free) receives some 22,000 daily visits.  The InBio web site has already been recognized (in 2005) as the best Costa Rican web site and in that same year as the second best site in Latin America!  The Encyclopedia of Life site can be found at www.eol.org.

Link to Article in La Nación