By Katherine Richardson
The ASVO (Association of Volunteers) has been in Matapalo Beach for 5 years and patrols 5.4 KM of the beach. Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea)turtles nest on Matapaplo Beach from June to November. This year according to Mr. Roberto Solano, the scientist in charge of the project, they have had 180 Olive Ridley turtle nests and on 1 leatherback nest as of the 10th of Dec. This is the first leatherback nest in the past 5 years of monitoring according to Mr. Solano. The Volunteers conduct night patrols, monitor the turtle hatchery 24 hours a day and clean up the beach in Matapalo. Night patrols continued until mid December to protect the nests from poachers and retrieve the eggs to the safety of the hatchery. Hatchings will continue through January.
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Filed under: Uncategorized on January 31st, 2010
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by Todd Pequeen
“I know that touching was and still is and always will be the true revolution.” – Nikki Giovanni
We should all touch ourselves. I often fantasize with my clients on how wonderful it would be to get a massage every day. Imagine having your favorite masseur at your beck and call to get your fix whenever needed…how glorious would that be? Well, we all do have this available, we can utilize ourselves. While sitting on my board surfing, waiting for waves, I massage with both my hands my head and temporal regions. Just a minute of small circular strokes helps to further relax and loosen me up. Every day I massage my own hands and forearms, it has become a routine, it allows me to know where my aches and pains are as well as flushing out stagnate blood revitalizing my tools of the trade. We are all socialized into the language of the senses and in my opinion have become impoverished with hands-on nonverbal forms of communication, relying instead on disengagement and so called sophistication with each other. Sight and hearing (distance senses) rule our days while taste, smell, and touch (proximity senses) are almost a taboo. A shame in my opinion but adopting a philosophy of touching oneself can help bring us into the light.
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Filed under: Health is Wealth, Todd Pequeen on January 31st, 2010
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By Carol Vlassoff
Barry Biesanz pulls into my driveway, hops out of his car and wastes no time settling onto a patio chair for our interview. He does not need any prompting: he clearly has a message to share.
“People ask me,” he says, “I bet you’ve seen a lot of changes here over the last 40 years. They assume they have all been for the worse – but they haven’t. Sure, there are some ill-conceived projects, drugs, prostitution and corruption. But there are far more monkeys than there were in 1971, and much more prosperity.” Most of Manuel Antonio, he continues, was being converted to pasture and crops, even much of what is now the park, and all the mangroves near town were cut to make charcoal.
“The United Fruit Company was the only employer aside from two huge and many small cattle farms. With the switch to tourism, forest cover increased and species that were been gone for decades have returned. Living standards are very much better for Quepeños.”
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Filed under: Carol Vlassoff, Personalities in Our Midst on January 31st, 2010
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By Jim Parisi
The essence of Calypso is in its rhythm and its humor, not necessarily in that order. The seed of this musical style sprouted around Barbados, Trinidad and Ciudad Colon, Panama. It spread, literally by word of mouth, to other Caribbean ports, including Kingston, Jamaica, where it spawned the nucleus of reggae music.
Walter Ferguson is probably the last Calypsonian to learn his craft in this traditional, organic manner. Born in Guabito, Panama in 1919, he moved to Cahuita, Costa Rica at an early age with his father, Melsh, who was a cook for the Banana Company there. For years, Ferguson, or “Gavitt” as he is affectionately referred to by his wife and family, plied his trade with an old Martin guitar, creating songs and exchanging them with other wandering Calypso minstrels up and down the Caribbean coast of Central America. Walter even recorded a vinyl album of original songs in the early 1970s, which quickly slipped into obscurity along with its composer.
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Filed under: Jim Parisi, Music Review on January 31st, 2010
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By Marina Ocampo
One of the main focus areas of the work of the Titi Conservation Alliance is assistance to our members to introduce more sustainable practices in their work and, as a tangible proof of their commitment to the sustainable development, to get certified by the Costa Rica Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) Program.
The program evaluates four categories: The interaction between the company and its surrounding natural habitat, the management policies and the operational systems within the company and its infrastructure, the interaction of the company with its clients in terms of how much it allows and invites the client to be an active contributor to the company’s policies of sustainability, and the interaction of the company with the local communities and the population in general.
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Filed under: Marina Ocampo, Titi Conservation Alliance on January 31st, 2010
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By Janine Lacare
I write to you today to let you know, not so much about the organization, Kids Saving The Rainforest, (KSTR) but more on how it got started. KSTR is a 501 (C) 3, non-profit organization that was founded 11 years ago in 1999 by my best friend Aislin and me.
Here is our story:
Being the young kids that we were, we decided that we wanted to start making money all on our own. We started out by making paper-Mache bottles and painted rocks as paper weights. We set up our little (but crazy-cute) roadside stand on a “recyclable” cardboard box, selling our items to passing strangers. Although we made a couple of bucks of some random passerby’s, our intentions to save the rainforest had not yet begun.
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Filed under: Janine Licare, Kids Saving the Rainforest on January 24th, 2010
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By Donna Porter
Creating and maintaining private gardens for individuals to enjoy has been a part of my life for the past 30 years, but creating public gardens has been my passion for the last 20. A private garden can be enjoyed by perhaps a hundred or so people, while a public garden is available for the enjoyment and education of hundreds of thousands. Mixing and matching plants in a garden design to showcase (or show-off) their best features is such a pleasure to me and the resulting combination can be magnetizing in a landscape. This is the thrill that makes creating gardens so much fun. But, the real reward for me is utilizing this skill in connecting people with plants.
So what is a public garden and what is so special about them? Well, I am so glad that you asked, and please, allow me to enlighten you. Public gardens are places that are open to the public and whose plantings provide an educational and/or recreational resource that assist in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and the enhancement of the natural landscape. Public gardens encourage the people/plant connection. In North America, public gardens are as diverse as the natural world itself and include botanical gardens, display gardens, therapeutic gardens, nature centers, sculpture gardens, arboreta, parks, college campuses, historic landscapes and believe it or not, even some cemeteries are considered public gardens. It seems, though, that within this group, botanical gardens hold the most overall appeal.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on January 19th, 2010
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