Unchopping a Tree

We are pleased to be a part of Maya Lin's What is Missing Project.

Maya Lin Unveils New Project in Copenhagen

SustainableBusiness.com News has a piece on Maya Lin's "What is Missing?" project, which honored Paso Pacifico's Return to Forest program in Copenhagen:

Maya Lin, the world-renowned artist and designer, revealed a new media piece in Copenhagen on Wednesday on the sidelines of United Nations climate change negotiations. 

The video, titled "Unchopping a Tree" is the latest iteration of a larger project, called "What is Missing?," which Lin said will be her last memorial.
... 

The new video addresses deforestation prevention and sustainable reforestation for reducing carbon emissions and protecting endangered species and habitats.
... 

The seven organizations being honored tonight prove that REDD is not only doable, but is being done," Ms. Lin said. "All of us can help to unchop a tree and show that trees are worth more alive than dead. By protecting forests, we help stop species loss and curb cliamte change so in effect, we are 'saving two birds with one tree.'"

We are grateful to the What is Missing? foundation and hope you will consider supporting our reforestation efforts with a donation.

Primera Gira de Bidiversidad

At Paso Pacifico, we've always been committed to education. Teaching about the environment from a young age is the best way to ensure that children grow up to value their natural resources and promote conservation.

Since 2007, Paso Pacifico's environmental education teacher, Julie Martinez, has been traveling around the Paso del Istmo, taking hands-on environmental curriculum to schools.

Last month, Julie took a group of schoolchildren from Sapoa (a small town on the shores of Lake Nicaragua), on our first ever Biodiversity Field Trip.

At the Museum of Tropical Dry Ecology in Diriamba, Julie and the kids learned about the regional climate, and about the ecology of dry forests, lakes, and volcano chains.

In Masaya National Park, they visited the volcano, and learned about its forests and birds, as well as endangered species who inhabit the area.

For many of these children, this was the first time they'd ever left their communities. We hope to give many more kids the opportunity to travel and get a better understanding of Nicaragua's forests and wildlife.

If you are interested in helping Nicaraguan schoolchildren explore the direct and indirect benefits of healthy ecosystems, we invite you to donate to our environmental education programs today.

Your donation will help us teach children to respect wildlife and cultivate a culture of conservation.

Restoring oceans of wilderness to save the planet.

We're pleased with all the press coming out of WILD9. This piece in the San Antonio Current provides a great overview of the event and highlights our work in the context of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor:

Living forest and a tree plantation are perhaps primarily distinguished by the diversity of species present. Howler monkeys, orangutans, giant sloths, and jaguars are the stuff of forests, the substance of biodiversity. For this menagerie to stay healthy, there must be room to roam. In Nicaragua, the founder and executive director of the non-profit Paso Pacífico, Sarah Otterstrom, is working to create that space.

While she has successfully enlisted help from local communities to restore coastal habitat and slowed the trade in sea turtle eggs by paying residents up to $2.50 per hatchling that reaches the surf, her aims extend further. She hopes to one day establish a chain of protected areas linked by ecologically protected corridors along the entire Pacific Coast of Central America. It’s the same concept that first informed a Central American jaguar-protection effort, Paseo Pantera, in the 1990s, and the dream that followed of a Mesoamerican Biological Corridor that hoped to protect undeveloped wilderness from Panama to Mexico.

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle at Marin's Marine Mammal Center

Rare giant sea turtle found on Stinson Beach

An endangered giant sea turtle rarely found north of Mexico washed up alive on Stinson Beach after drifting possibly thousands of miles.

"This is definitely a rare find, one of only three live olive ridley turtles I know of reported in the scientific literature since 2001 along the Central California coast," said Todd Steiner, a biologist and executive director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, based in Marin County.

Steiner said the turtle was suffering from what is known as cold-stunning, a unique state of suspended animation that can allow a turtle to survive for months in cold water. The big green reptile was covered with algae, barnacles, shore crabs and ghost shrimp, indicating that it had been floating for a long time. Subsequent blood tests revealed it was malnourished.

We often see Olive RIdley sea turtles nesting on the beach at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, but shifting currents and climate sometimes get sea turtles a little off track.

Paso Pacifico's Thin Green Line

Trained by retired US National Park Service Ranger and Paso Pacifico Board Member Rick Smith, our turtle rangers form the "thin green line" protecting thousands of endangered animals and places. Working 'round the clock, turtle rangers patrol the beaches, monitoring nesting turtles, protecting hatchlings from predators, and using non-confrontational approaches to ask that egg poachers cease poaching on their beaches.

We are extremely proud of our turtle rangers, who have now protected hundreds of nests and thousands of baby turtles, and helped us cultivate a culture of conservation within Nicaragua's coastal communities.

Climate Change Conference kicks off in Copenhagen Monday

In advance of the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, the Ventura County Star gives us more love:

There is debate over whether any kind of meaningful international agreement will come out of the summit. But the local people attending think it will help push the climate issue further along and lay groundwork for a future agreement.

“The value is that we continue to work toward a climate solution,” said Sarah Otterstrom, executive director of Paso Pacifico, a Ventura-based nonprofit that works to stop deforestation in Nicaragua. Along with Jane Goodall and a few others, Otterstrom will receive an award for her work.

She wants to promote the concept of REDD — reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. If countries stopped cutting down forests — which suck up greenhouse gases — it would go a long way toward curbing climate change, she said.

What is Missing?

We are so pleased to learn that the What is Missing? (WIM) Foundation will honor Paso Pacifico by purchasing certified carbon offset credits and by donating to our Return to Forest project.

We were thrilled to receive notification of this honor, along with an invitation to attend a REDD+ special event at the IPCC summit in Copenhagen next month. The WIM Foundation exists to "help protect habitat and safeguard biodiversity through diverse public education and awareness efforts."

An example of their awareness efforts is founder Maya Lin's What is Missing? memorial, "a tribute to vanished (and vanishing) parts of our natural world and a call to action to help reverse the trends."

We look forward to connecting with our fellow WIM Foundation honorees:

• Dr. Wangari Maathai and the Sankuru “Fair Trade” Community Carbon Initiative in the Democratic Republic of Congo 
• Dr. Jane Goodall and her new forest offset project in the Gombe Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanzania
• Chief Almir and the indigenous Surui reforestation effort in the Brazilian Amazon
• Iman Sapari and the Yayorin Orangutan habitat protection project in Indonesia
• Tengchong Conservation Carbon Project in the Yunnan Province of China

The WIM Foundation will honor Paso Pacifico founder Dr. Sarah Otterstrom because they consider the Return to Forest project to be "an exemplary model of forest-offset projects that help tackle climate change, protect biodiversity, and advance the well being of local communities."

La Prensa Reports on Plastic Soup

La Prensa covered the presentation of our findings from this year's International Coastal Cleanup, gathering over 300,000 pounds of trash:

Recolectan más de 300 mil libras de basura 

Un total de 332 mil 925 libras de basura inorgánica fue recolectada durante la jornada, en la que participaron 30 municipios que poseen costas incluyendo a Bluefields, Corn Island, San Rafael del Sur, Granada, Diriamba, Jinotepe, Juigalpa, Corinto, Puerto Cabezas, San Juan del Sur, entre otros.

Liza González, directora de Paso Pacífico, dijo que se limpiaron 167.1 millas de costas y se recorrieron 104 localidades de estos 30 municipios.

Pitter Bishop from the Swiss Development Agency COSUDE (event sponsors), talked about the "plastic soup" caused by trash floating in the North Pacific, and Paso Pacifico's Liza Gonzalez reported on the pollution data and emphasized the importance of community involvement in this cleanup.

Creating a Culture of Conservation

¡Felicidades Karina!

Meet Karina Alvarez, from Pueblo Nuevo in the Rivas province of Nicaragua.

Karina won honorable mention in a national children's art contest, after taking a Paso Pacifico-sponsored course in nature painting.

Karina is a shining example of how our environmental education programs help  develop a culture of conservation.

Calm Air; Visibility Unlimited

We're excited to have videographers from CAVUsite.org visiting the Paso del Istmo this week. They're getting footage for a documentary on the future of tourism in Nicaragua.

Dedicated to helping people solve complex problems related to the management and conservation of natural resources, CAVU uses flight, film, and education to bring people and communities together for conservation.

Torneo de Panga

San Juan del Sur's Annual Panga Fishing Tournament took place this weekend. Paso Pacifico's National Director, Liza Gonzalez was on hand to deliver a presentation about marine conservation.

If you watch this video, you'll understand why everyone at Paso Pacifico is happy to be a part of the San Juan del Sur community.

Saving Wild Places Will Save the Planet

We're pleased to be included in this piece at the Environmental News Service:

MÉRIDA, Mexico, November 13, 2009 (ENS) - For the first time in decades, the eggs of endangered sea turtles buried on a small strip of Nicaraguan beach will not be collected and sold in local food markets. A program developed by nonprofit Paso Pacífico pays residents up to $2.50 for each turtle hatchling that reaches the surf — almost 10 times what they would have brought from the market. 

While only one resident participated in the program last year, this year brought in scores. 

“The problem was no one believed we would actually pay for a baby turtle and everyone knew they were going to get cash from the sea-turtle egg trader,” said Paso Pacífico founder and executive director Sarah Otterstrom.

You can read more about our sea turtle conservation programs here.

Photos from the particular hatch (25 years in the making) referenced in the article are here.

Meet the people who do the work!

You're just as likely to find them in the field in Rivas, checking on our biodiversity monitoring stations, traveling from rural school to rural school on horseback, measuring tree growth at one of our reforestation projects, or just picking up garbage on the beach, but this is Paso Pacifico's Managua-based team.

Paso Pacifico team visits the Montibelli Private Nature Reserve

Caras Blancas

Our friends at AMICTLAN have shared this great video of the white-faced capuchin monkey, with friends of the Laguna de Apoyo Nature Reserve.

Conservation Efforts in Nicaragua Shed Portable Light on the Pacific Coast

Unique solar technology aids Paso Pacifico in protecting endangered sea turtles

Media Contacts: 

Wendy Purnell, Paso Pacifico
1-805-643-7044
wendy@pasopacifico.org

Sheila Kennedy, Portable Light Project
1-617-442-0800
skennedy@kvarch.net


It was a chance meeting at PopTech’s annual innovation conference two years ago that sparked collaboration between California-based NGO Paso Pacífico and the Portable Light Project. At the event, Paso Pacífico Executive Director, Dr. Sarah Otterstrom, and Portable Light Project founder, Sheila Kennedy, met for the first time and considered the implications that the project’s simple, solar-powered textiles could have on Paso Pacifico’s conservation efforts in Nicaragua.

Now, just as PopTech convenes again this week, Paso Pacífico announces its launch of Portable Light technology to support the protection of endangered sea turtles and to advance young women as environmental leaders in Nicaragua.

While Portable Light Project systems have been used to benefit social and human health causes in rural areas of Mexico and Africa, Paso Pacifico takes the technology in a new direction. Utilizing locally made bags that incorporate the pliable, light-producing solar panels, the lights enable communities to protect wildlife, and also empower women in sustainable tourism and education. Sheila Kennedy notes, “This is a brilliant three-in-one design that demonstrates how mobile, clean energy can enable education, local economic development, and mitigate climate change.”

Paso Pacifico’s community rangers patrol sea turtle nesting beaches using a Portable Light equipped with a red light adapter designed by Kennedy and her team. In addition to illuminating the darkness, the bags solve a number of challenges that the rangers face. Each bag has the ability to charge cell phones, which allow those on patrol to communicate with each other and local authorities. Their use of renewable energy also eliminates wasted batteries, while providing a durable and sustainable safety measure to rangers working at night. With Portable Lights, local rangers can patrol deserted beaches, deterring poachers who would otherwise devastate imperiled species such as the Hawksbill turtle.

Paso Pacífico also aims to empower young women and girls who have historically been excluded from opportunities for environmental leadership. Paso Pacifico is providing training to young women to work as eco-tourism guides. Portable light will motivate and empower these guides as they lead sea turtle and other evening tours.

Women and girls participating in Paso Pacifico environmental education programs are also burdened with many household chores and are only able to study in the evenings. Portable Lights will be given to young girls who are eager to progress in their learning, but who live in areas without electricity. This initiative to empower women while mitigating climate change is part of the Paso Pacifico Commitment announced at the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative by Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus.

Kennedy summed it up when she said, “Individually owned, each bag is a portable clean power platform which expands the impacts of local conservation, that charges cell phones, provides renewable light at night for community based education and builds approaches to conservation that empower women in resource protection and sustainable enterprise development.”

Paso Pacífico is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Ventura, California that works to protect Central America’s Pacific slope ecosystems. The non-profit implements projects in environmental education, sustainable agriculture, forest restoration and wildlife conservation. For more information, visit www.pasopacifico.org

The Portable Light Project enables the world’s poorest people to create and own solar textiles, providing clean energy and light to improve education, health care and economic development, while strengthening the local craft traditions of diverse cultures and global regions. For more information, visit www.portablelight.org and to view a video of Portable Lights visit http://blip.tv/play/AfmVbI7+Bg   

Vida y muerte en La Flor

Adelayde Rivas, our PR guru in Managua shares a sad story.

The other day she got a call from Paso Pacifico, informing her of an arribada at La Flor, the sea turtles were arriving to nest on the beach. She set aside a mountain of work and errands in Managua to head for the coast, dig her feet into the clean sands of the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, and take pictures of these noble creatures. 

She and her camera man arrived at the beach just after midnight. Turtles were still coming ashore to nest on the beach, but she'd missed the huge wave that had arrived earlier -- almost 16,0000 turtles had already come and gone. They set up camp and waited until dawn.

The turtles kept arriving, not as many as before, but they were arriving and Adelayde and her camera man got a lot of great photos of turtles digging their nests and laying eggs. 

Eventually she and Salvadoran wildlife biologist Ivan Rodriguez took a walk. They came across what they at first thought was a large piece of plastic, only to realize it was a dead turtle. Ivan, noticing nylon thread coming from her mouth, suggested it was very likely the turtle had gotten caught in fishermen's lines and hooks. It appeared the fishermen had lifted her into their boat to cut the line and release her, but it was not enough. She made her way to shore, but apparently died of internal injuries before she could lay her eggs. 

There were over 27,000 turtles who successfully nested on the beach during this arribada, but Adelayde reflects on the foolishness of man. Knowing turtles already face the threat of multiple predators ranging from foxes and dogs, to birds and crabs, we add more danger to the mix as fishermen's hooks and nets pose serious risks and poachers raid nests for turtle eggs. 

The turtle Adelayde and Ivan found dead was probably 25-30 years old, reminding us that it takes a long time for turtles to reach the mature reproductive age. Every fisherman's hook, every turtle egg consumed by man, threatens the survival of this threatened species. 

Eco-tourism is helping sea turtles make a comeback as they travel to Nicaragua and spend money to see the arribadas, but it is important to remember that what can happen to the turtles, can happen to us. 

Extinction is forever.

Read Adelayde's story in her own words (in Spanish) on her blog.

Nicaragua's Land, Trees, and People

Over at Project Groundswell, S. Neil Larsen, shares his adventures on horseback visiting our Return to Forest program:

Under a midday sun, I guided my horse up a steep, dusty slope, eventually emerging at the top of a ridge overlooking a brown valley, roads crisscrossing the landscape. Though it was the dry season on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast, this area seemed more void of life than normal. Above, a large hawk circled, riding thermals up and down the ridgelines, searching for small prey before settling in a large tree, one of the few still standing.

We should have been riding under the cover of dense forest canopy. Instead my skin, pale from the New York winter, steadily acquired a burn. 

Every 5 meters were small saplings planted in rows lining the hillside. Around each sapling, the surrounding ground vegetation was removed, presumably to give the young trees the space and sunlight they needed to grow. I had expected to see more dramatic results, but I had to keep reminding myself that these trees were just planted two years ago, and it would take 10-15 years for this degraded former pastureland to resemble a forest. 

I was in the middle of a 400 hectare reforestation project of 35,000 saplings of 70 different species of native trees, witnessing the start of what would some day be a dense dry tropical forest filled with spider monkeys, yellow-naped parrots, and ocelots. 

... 

The reforestation project, aptly named Return to the Forest, is the result of a partnership between the owners of Las Fincas de Escamequita, and Southern California based Paso Pacifico. Donn Wilson, a San Diego native and owner ofLas Fincas, bought the property with the intention of returning parts of the land to their natural state.

Read his story in its entirety here.

Coastal Cleanup Summary

We've added photos from this year's Coastal Cleanup to our Flickr photo album. 

You can browse through the photos here.

And the data is in!

Over six thousand volunteers 

picked up over 300,000 pounds of garbage 

along 167 miles of coastline.

Sea turtle hatchlings follow the brightest light

This bittersweet story of a romantic marriage proposal with unintended consequences for marine life, is a good illustration of why Paso Pacifico Turtle Rangers have custom-designed red lights on their solar FLAP bags from the Portable Light Project.

A romantic marriage proposal on a Hilton Head Island beach Tuesday night had an unintended consequence -- the death of about 60 federally protected loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings.

A man had placed about 150 luminarias -- bags with a lit candle inside -- in the shape of a heart on the beach near Palmetto Dunes, according to volunteers with the Sea Turtle Project who monitor the nests.

After the proposal, the visiting couple apparently retired to their rental home without extinguishing the lights. An estimated 60 baby sea turtles emerged from a nearby nest a short time later and became disoriented.

Story via Ocean Sentry.

Saturday's Successful Coastal Cleanup

Volunteers hard at work in Ostional

Starting early in the morning, thousands of volunteers joined us in our efforts to protectNicaragua's waterways for the International Coastal Cleanup Day, an annual event organized by the Ocean Conservancy. Our volunteers worked along the coast from San Juan del Sur to Ostional, and up the riverbanks to Escameca.

Coastal cleanup includes our river banks.
These kids are lending a hand in Escameca.

This event serves several purposes. First of all, of course, we picked up garbage off the beaches and riverbanks. Secondly, we conducted a careful survey to allow greater understanding of current pollution patterns. This data will help us combat marine pollution in the future. Additionally, this event helped raise awareness as members of the community came together to tackle the problem of pollution.

As the event drew to a close, Paso Pacifico's National Director, Liza Gonzalez, thanked everyone involved:

“Paso Pacífico agradece a todos y todas las pesonas que de una u otra manera han puesto, un poco de su esfuerzo para hacer realidad este sueño, de ver una Nicaragua más limpia y más responsable con el medio ambiente."

Thank you, everyone, for helping us realize our dream of a cleaner, more environmentally responsible Nicaragua.

Midway Journey

The MIDWAY media project is a powerful visual journey into the heart of an astonishingly symbolic environmental tragedy.

The Midway Trash-a-Thon illustrates the importance of cleaning up our waterways.

Watch this video of two members of the Midway Journey project rummaging through a huge pile of garbage. It looks like they could be at a municipal dump, but they're just sitting among garbage collected on the beaches of the tiny, remote Midway Island, surrounded by thousands of miles of open ocean.

International Coastal Cleanup Day is September 19th.

September 19th: Get Read to Cleanup the Coastline

“Limpieza Internacional de Costas”

Nicaragua 2009

PROGRAMA

6:00a.m. - Salida de Managua

9:00 a.m. Llegada a San Juan del Sur

9:30ª.m. Palabras de apertura y agradecimiento Alcalde de la Municipalidad de San Juan del Sur, Jorge Sánchez.

9:45ª.m. Palabras de Liza González, Directora Nacional de Paso Pacífico.

10:00 Acto Cultural a cargo del grupo Folclórico de San Juan del Sur.

12:30p.m Almuerzo

3:00p.m. Cierre de Campaña Limpieza Internacional de Costas: Nicaragua 2009.

4:00p.m. Retorno a Managua

Noche Tropical

Event to benefit Central American forests, wildlife

Noche Tropical
September 11th
Brooks Restaurant
Ventura, CA

We're in the news at the Ventura County Star:

Local wines, a Latin-inspired meal and stories from the tropics will highlight Noche Tropical, a fundraiser benefiting the wildlife and forests of Central America on Thursday at BROOKS Restaurant in Ventura. 

“This fundraiser was inspired by realizing that there are members of the local community who care deeply about the rainforests and wildlife of Central America; these include local business owners who have generously donated to support our silent auction, and, of course, Restaurant BROOKS,” said Sarah Otterstrom, founder and executive director of Paso Pacifico, a Ventura-based nonprofit dedicated to conserving and restoring tropical forests and wildlife along Central America’s Pacific Coast.

For more information or to buy tickets: PasoPacifico.org/NocheTropical

Clinton Global Initiative

We look forward to attending the Clinton Global Initiative later this month where we'll be recognized for our work empowering women and supporting sustainable agriculture.

A relatively young organization founded by women, we launched our environmental programs in communities throughout the Rivas province of Nicaragua, with no thought for the gender of our participants. Over time it has become apparent that the success of Paso Pacifico's projects hinges on the generous participation and concentrated effort of the women in various communities where we work. 

For example, for two years Paso Pacifico has worked to mitigate climate-change by planting over a quarter of a million native trees. Tree nurseries were established by the community at large, but it was the women who developed techniques to germinate the seeds of rare trees, continuously weeded the seedlings, and who carefully planted the trees to avoid root damage. This reduction in greenhouse gases is the direct result of the actions of women.

Last year, Paso Pacifico initiated a program to train rural community tour guides. When the program began, the young women in the group lacked the confidence to speak publicly, but over time they proved to be more active in training activities than their male counterparts. Today, the young women are excellent guides and are poised to build a successful eco-tourism business. Other rural women who own fledgling eco-tourism businesses such as hostels, private reserves, and restaurants are also eager to strengthen their entrepenuerial skills. 

Paso Pacifico also provides training and materials for gardens that include fruit trees and diverse vegetable crops. Women have been the ones to take advantage of these efforts and have been successful enough that there is now an opportunity for excess crops to be sold for profit. Empowering women to earn income from sustainable agriculture will ensure benefits for the environment and communities.

To leverage our resources and ensure the continued success of our mission, we have begun to shift our focus to directly benefit women and strengthen their role in our programs. We have also begun to raise awareness that organizations and movements, at multiple political and social scales, benefit from the leadership and dedicated work of women.

As stewards of scarce natural resources, educators of a globally-conscious generation, and entrepreneurs driving local business, the women of rural Nicaragua play a pivotal role in the future of their region. We strengthen Nicaraguan women and girls as leaders in environmental sustainability by introducing new technology and market-based approaches in resource protection and sustainable development. We also build capacity through education and training in sustainable tourism, resource management, and organizational leadership.

Partners in Conservation Education

We're pleased to be joining forces with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Leon (UNAN-Leon) in Nicaragua. We'll be working together to do conservation work, conduct research, and provide internship opportunities for students.

To celebrate our new partnership, they're joining us to help coordinate Nicaragua's 2nd annual International Coastal Cleanup Day, covering 12 km of beaches along the Pacific coast.

September 4: Media Event for Nicaragua's 2nd Annual Coastal Cleanup

September 4th, 2009
10:00 am
Restaurant Cafe El Garabato

An invitation for members of the press to learn about Nicaragua's participation in the International Coastal Cleanup Day, co-sponsored by MARENA and the Ocean Conservancy.

Cleanup day activities will take place along 12 Km of Nicaragua's Pacific coastline on September 19th.

Meet Ostional's first turtle hatchlings in 25 years!

For more than two decades, poachers raided every single sea turtle nest on the beach in Ostional, a small fishing village along the Nicaragua's southern Pacific coast.

Determined to change that, we came up with a system of incentive payments to reward individuals for finding, reporting, and protecting turtle nests, and additional incentive payments to reward the community at large for supporting our conservation efforts.

How's that commitment to voluntary solutions working out for us?

Meet the first baby sea turtles to hatch on the beach in Ostional in 25 years!

Update: Turtle Tracker

"Our" turtle Brasilia has made it to El Salvador. You can monitor her progress here.


Our turtle rangers have also encountered a third Hawksbill turtle, which will receive the transmitter which was stolen from Karen.

Partnering with the Private Wildlife Reserve Network

Paso Pacifico and the Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas have officially joined forces to help to guide our partnership and strengthen Paso Pacifico’s commitment to supporting the Private Reserve Network.

We are very fortunate to be partnering with such a valuable organization and its members.

Please check out the website for the Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas when you have a chance. You will be amazed at how the membership has grown!

September 19th: Nicaragua’s 2nd International Coastal Clean-up

September 4th Paso Pacifico will be holding a national press conference with MARENA and its many other partners about the International Coastal Clean-up. We expect it to be a major press event. Stay tuned for more coverage. The clean up is scheduled for September 19th.

We have also received a grant to support the clean-up event. A portion of the fund will be used to purchase garbage canisters to be awarded to municipalities across the country with the best clean-up effort.

Plastics in oceans decompose, release hazardous chemicals

Our coastal, harbor, and waterways cleanups are even more important than we thought:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2009 — In the first study to look at what happens over the years to the billions of pounds of plastic waste floating in the world’s oceans, scientists are reporting that plastics — reputed to be virtually indestructible — decompose with surprising speed and release potentially toxic substances into the water.

Reporting here today at the 238^th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the researchers termed the discovery “surprising.” Scientists always believed that plastics in the oceans were unsightly, but a hazard mainly to marine animals that eat or become ensnared in plastic objects. 

“Plastics in daily use are generally assumed to be quite stable,” said study lead researcher Katsuhiko Saido, Ph.D. “We found that plastic in the ocean actually decomposes as it is exposed to the rain and sun and other environmental conditions, giving rise to yet another source of global contamination that will continue into the future.”

Read the full article here.

Portable Light Project: Designs to Improve Life

We are thrilled that our partners at the Portable Light Project are INDEX Award finalists. The INDEX Award is one of the most significant awards for designs that improve life.

We've just put our new solar FLAP bags from the Portable Light Project to work in the field.

Sloan Kuyper from the Portable Light Project
teaches turtle rangers about his team's product.

Turtle Rangers at La Flor
show off their new solar FLAP bags.

These solar FLAP bags each have a red light adapter for night time monitoring of important turtle nesting beaches. The red light units, custom designed to replace white light for our turtle rangers, allow us to patrol the beaches at night without disorienting the turtle hatchlings who rely on moonlight to guide them to sea.

These adaptable solar textile kits enable people with no access to electricity to use traditional weaving and sewing techniques to create clothing, blankets, and bags that harvest energy from sunlight. Weighing only 340 grams, a 4-watt solar textile can easily be carried and charges in 3 hours, corresponding to 8 hours of light.

...
In Nicaragua, Portable Light in a locally made pack enables villagers to have light for community education and work at night as conservationists protecting turtle nests. In South Africa, tuberculosis/HIV patients can use Portable Light in a blanket to generate power for their families as they are cured by exposure to sunlight. The ability to charge cell phones with Portable Light enables people to benefit from connectivity to mobile technology that is transforming health care, business, and education in the developing world. Renewable light extends useful time at night, creating unprecedented opportunities to study and work to improve household incomes. Family health is improved by reducing the need to burn fuels for light, reducing deforestation, and kin can link solar textiles in a clean energy network for community projects.”

This new application of technology is helping us create local jobs in conservation, enabling Nicaraguans to put their expertise to use for the betterment of global biodiversity.

Please cast your vote to help the Portable Light Project win the People's Choice Award.

Using Fractals to Mitigate Climate Change

NOVA: Hunting the Hidden Dimension

Paso Pacifico founder, ecologist Sarah Otterstrom,
ponders our carbon sequestration projects. 

Bill Enquist, a plant ecologist at the University of Arizona, is using fractals to further understanding of forests and how they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help regulating the Earth's climate. Enquist and his team of scientists are working in forest reserves in the Guanacaste Province in Costa Rica, which borders the area where we work in Rivas, Nicaragua. Their explorations of trees and forests is fascinating, and has a lot of implications for our Return to Forest project to mitigate climate change a few miles north.

BRIAN ENQUIST: If you look at the xforest, it, basically, breathes. And if we understand the total amount of carbon dioxide that's coming into these trees within this forest, we can then better understand how this forest then, ultimately, regulates the total amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
...
CHRISTINA LAMANNA (Santa Fe Institute): So, if we know the amount of carbon dioxide that one leaf is able to take in, then, hopefully, using the fractal branching rule, we can know how much carbon dioxide the entire tree is taking in
...
BRIAN ENQUIST: We're going to census this forest. We're going to be measuring the diameter at the base of the trees, ranging all the way from the largest trees down to the smallest trees. And in that way we can then sample the distribution of sizes within the forest.
...
NARRATOR: Even though the forest may appear random and chaotic, the team believes it actually has a structure, one that, amazingly, is almost identical to the fractal structure of the tree they have just cut down.

JAMES BROWN: The beautiful thing is that the distribution of the sizes of individual trees in the forest appears to exactly match the distribution of the sizes of individual branches within a single tree.
...
BRIAN ENQUIST: By analyzing the fractal patterns within the forest, that then enables us to do something that we haven't really been able to do before: have, then, a mathematical basis to then predict how the forest as a whole takes in carbon dioxide. And ultimately, that's important for understanding what may happen with global climate change.
...
NARRATOR: For generations, scientists believed that the wildness of nature could not be defined by mathematics. But fractal geometry is leading to a whole new understanding, revealing an underlying order governed by simple mathematical rules.

GEOFFREY WEST: What I thought of in my hikes through forests, that, you know, it's just a bunch of trees of different sizes, big ones here, small ones there, looking like it's sort of some arbitrary chaotic mess, actually has an extraordinary structure.

NARRATOR:  A structure that can be mapped out and measured using fractal geometry.

BRIAN ENQUIST:  What's absolutely amazing is that you can translate what you see in the natural world in the language of mathematics. And I can't think of anything more beautiful than that.

Read the full transcript or order the DVD on the NOVA website at PBS.org.

Caribbean Biological Corridor in the Works?

"The Plan establishes the profiles for projects to be developed in a 1,600 kilometer-long geographic area which links three countries’ landscapes, ecosystems, habitats and cultures, the local Environment Ministry (Semarena) announced today."

Reported in Dominican Today

We'll be watching!

Solar FLAP Bags for Turtle Rangers

We're getting excited to welcome our friends from the Portable Light Project to Nicaragua. They're bringing customized solar FLAP units for use on the turtle nesting beaches.

These special units, created just for us, will be mounted to these bags (pictured at right). Each unit will emit a red light, rather than a white light, to ensure that they don't disorient turtle hatchlings who follow the moonlight to sea.

We're grateful to Sheila Kennedy, whom we met at Pop!Tech last year, for her work designing these, and her team for their help orchestrating this project.

Turtle Transmitter Recovered

Yesterday was a good day. We recovered the stolen turtle transmitter without police intervention. This, of course, is partly due to the fact that the stolen device was still transmitting its location. Fortunately, though, we also had conflict resolution training and experience on our side. Once our staff explained the transmitter's value for conservation and for sea turtles, the device was returned. Everyone is at peace and we have our $3000 satellite transmitter to affix to Karen again -- or perhaps to another turtle.

EcoLocalizer Reports on Performance-Based Conservation

Picking up Rick Smith's recent piece at National Parks Traveler, EcoLocalizer has posted about our turtle rangers and community-based conservation programs:

Paso Pacífico, a non-profit organization focusing on the Pacific slope of Central America, is helping endangered Hawksbill Turtles in Nicaragua with a compensation-based conservation program based on incentive payments for local people. The financial rewards to locals in exchange for protecting endangered sea turtle nests are making a difference: Rangers have reported that egg poaching is on the decline. And Paso Pacífico plans are to make this program sustainable.

You can see the EcoLocalizer piece here.

Crazy Turtle Update

Believe it or not, someone has stolen the satellite tracking device right off the back of Karen the Hawksbill sea turtle. Our colleagues in Ostional are trying to recover it -- luckily the stolen device is trackable!

Meanwhile, Karen is doing just fine. In fact, she nested last night at one of our beaches. Our rangers protected her and continue to protect her nest.

Ventura County Start Talks Turtles

We got a brief mention in the local paper today!

Ventura group tags rare sea turtle for study
 
"The Ventura-based conservation group Paso Pacifico recently tagged a rare sea turtle off the coast of Nicaragua with a radio transmitter that allows scientists to study the endangered species." 

Endangered Hawksbill turtles tagged

Paso Pacifico is proud to announce that our rangers together with sea turtle scientists from the Proyecto Carey! have measured and tagged two critically endangered Hawksbill turtles.  They were encountered and protected by our rangers on June 30th 2009 near the beach ‘La Flor’, a well known mass nesting olive ridley beach along the country’s southwest coast. These turtles will provide critical conservation information for what is one of the most endangered sea turtle populations on the planet; the hawksbill turtle in the eastern Pacific. The information generated will be used to help guide future research and conservation in the study region.

This huge achievement was made possible thanks to Alex and Ingrid of Proyecto Carey! and to the Eastern Pacific Hawskbill Inititiave,  the Nicaraguan Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), the Nicaraguan Sea Turtle Network (Red Nica), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the USAID, the US Forest Service International Institute for Tropical Forestry, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
You may follow these turtles here:
http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?project_id=295

Exporting "Rangering" to Nicaragua

Paso Pacifíco board member, Rick Smith, has written a new piece for National Parks Traveler about the Hawksbills we're tracking:

The rangers who discovered the two turtles kept them on the beach for two days, keeping their heads covered with wet towels and occasionally pouring water over their backs, so these unwitting reptilian volunteers could help scientists learn more about their dwindling species.  

During the second day, a turtle expert from a regional program known as Project Hawksbill came and in cooperation with Paso Pacífico and the employees of MARENA (The Ministry of Natural Resources in Nicaragua) affixed a digital transmitter on the shells of the turtles using a special epoxy. So rigged, these transmitters should allow the turtles’ travels to be tracked when they come to the surface to breath during the next year or two.  

This transmitter tagging was no small event. Children were released from school to observe the installation. Officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources were there, as were representatives of the media. It was very emotional when the children applauded when the second turtle returned to the sea after being liberated. I am sure none of them will become turtle egg poachers in the future. 

Ranger Meeting

Rick's piece also describes the turtle ranger program he helped us launch:

Everyone recognized that the real heroes of this event were the rangers who work for Paso Pacífico, a non-profit organization founded in 2005 to focus on restoring and protecting the endangered ecosystems along the Pacific slope of Central America.
...
These rangers patrol unprotected beaches to protect turtle nests from poaching....All were very enthusiastic about what they were doing. They report that the number of egg poachers is slowly declining and that the incentive program is having a positive effect.

Read the whole piece here:
Exporting "Rangering": Working To Help Nicaraguans Safeguard Rare Hawksbill Turtles

Dreaming of Wetland Reserves

Wetland for sale in southern Nicaragua for sale. We hope to buy it to set aside as a community-managed wildlife reserve area for the local people.

If you are interested in contributing to a capital campaign to allow us to require land for biodiversity conservation, please visit our donation page or send an email: wendy(at)pasopacifico.org.

La Conga Reserve

Last week, we visited the new La Conga Reserve in southern Nicaragua with landowner and cattle rancher Pedro Agurcia.

Pictured are Agurcia, his daughter, one of his farmworkers, and Paso Pacifico board member Dr. Rodolfo Dirzo. In the background, you can catch a glimpse of the acreage he set aside for biodiversity conservation.

Kayak Guides

Kayak Guides in Ostional

As the tourism sector grows in Nicaragua, nature tourism has the potential to provide economic benefit to local communities while also supporting conservation efforts.

Paso Pacífico has joined with diverse partners to provide guide training and support business development. Beneficiary groups have included hostels and restaurants, all owned by members of the rural community. Young adults from rural villages have received extensive nature and kayak guide training, and have harnessed these new skills to create their own eco-tour guiding company.

High-tech turtles in the news

Karen heads out to sea

Karen and Brasilia, the two Hawksbill turtles we tagged earlier this month, are getting good press, in part because Hawksbills are more commonly found in the Caribbean than in the Pacific. In fact, Karen is the first Hawksbill ever to be tagged on Nicaragua's Pacific coast.

El Nuevo Diario:

Dos tortugas marinas de la especie Carey, especie muy común en el Caribe, asombraron a un par de científicos extranjeros por haberlas encontrados en aguas del Pacífico. Ellos no dejaron pasar la oportunidad para poder conocer sus rumbos marinos, colocándoles en sus caparazones un transmisor digital.

Así se convirtieron en los dos primeros quelonios en salir de las costas del municipio de San Juan del Sur, portando en sus respectivas conchas el dispositivo que permitirá a los científicos controlar de forma electrónica sus movimientos migratorios y dónde anidan.

A una de las tortugas se le bautizó como “Brasilia”, tal como la llamaron decenas de niños, estudiantes universitarios, personal del Refugio de Vida Silvestre La Flor y miembros de la Organización Paso Pacífico.

"Dos tortugas Carey salen del pais con trasmisor satelital"


La Prensa:

Dos tortugas carey que llegaron a anidar al Refugio de Vida Silvestre La Flor, en San Juan del Sur, entre las 11:00 p.m. del 29 y la madrugada del 30 de junio, tienen ahora un transmisor satelital que permitirá conocer las rutas que por el mar harán estos quelonios en peligro de extinción 

La colocación de estos transmisores satelitales fue hecha por miembros de la Red de Iniciativa Carey del Pacífico Oriental (Icapo), en presencia de estudiantes de primaria de El Ostional, organismos defensores de estas especies como Fauna y Flora Internacional y Paso Pacífico, además de funcionarios del Ministerio del Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales (Marena) Rivas y del Instituto Nicaragüense de Turismo.

"Rastrearan tortugas carey"

The turtles came with the June 29-30 arribada at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge. The satellites were mounted by representatives from ICAPO (the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative). The schoolchildren from Ostional we included in the process helped pick out the turtles' names.

Track Our Turtles!

Our turtle rangers in Nicaragua affixed satellite transmitters to two Hawksbill turtles, Karen and Brasilia.

You can follow their movement here: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?project_id=295&dyn=1246546646

First Pacific Hawksbills Tagged in Nicaragua

Schoolchildren from Ostional
named this Hawksbill Brasilia

A huge advancement for Hawksbill research in the eastern Pacific, Karen and Brasilia, are the first Hawksbills ever tagged on Nicaragua's Pacific coast. They will provide great tracking information in this extremely data deficient region.

Stay tuned for information about how to track the turtles!

Tracking Turtles

We have a hawksbill turtle at the beach where the rangers are and in the next 24 hours will be affixing a satellite transmitter to it to follow its movement across the eastern Pacific. More soon!

A Global Review of Incentive Payments for Sea Turtle Conservation

Published earlier this year, two economists published a paper in the BioOne Online Journal:

The use of performance payments to achieve conservation outcomes is increasingly being used as an alternative to traditional regulatory and development-based approaches in low-income nations. Although payments are increasingly common in terrestrial species and ecosystem conservation initiatives, they are rare in marine conservation efforts such as sea turtle protection. This paper describes sea turtle incentive payment initiatives taking place around the world, most of which are found in projects focusing on nesting beach protection. We find that many of these initiatives have achieved substantial results for a very low annual cost.

You can read the full abstract online and scroll down to find a map of market-based programs around the world. You'll see we are the only program in Central America.

Setting the World on Fire

Drawing from "Fire in the Earth System," a literature review published in the April 24 Science, Solmaz Barazesh explains fire ecology in his article in this week's Science News, "Ecology, climate and human activities conspire to set the world on fire," July 4th, 2009; Vol.176 #1 (p. 26).

Fire can shape landscapes, shift climate and even change processes such as the carbon cycle--blazes have impacted the planet for eons. But now, people could be shifting the balance in a new direction.

...

While fires may burn locally, their consequences spread globally. When forests blaze, carbon stored in vegetation escapes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Added up, the fires that burn all over the world could be a significant source of atmospheric carbon, even contributing to climate change.

...

"Our calculations show that forest fires could account for one-fifth of the greenhouse gases produced by humans," [Jennifer] Balch says.

...

Besides releasing heat-trapping carbon dioxide, fire contributes to climate change by releasing aerosols, or black soot. Soot can warm the atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation.

...

Fire is such a large source of carbon that it should be incorporated into predictions of climate change, researchers note.

"There’s an emerging need to look at fire at the intersection between biology, ecology and society," David Bowman said. Paso Pacifico founder, Sarah Otterstrom, agrees, which is why she examined that very intersection in her doctoral studies.

As a graduate student, Sarah, already passionate about climate change and the people and biodiversity of Central America, wanted to understand how the fires of traditional agriculture and hunting affected tropical forests. She had spent a couple years leading tourist expeditions through the rainforest canopy in Costa Rica, and had grown interested in climatological cycles and their link to fire and storm events. In the dry forests of Nicaragua, Sarah studied traditional agriculture, fire, climate change, and forest regeneration.

Paso Pacifico benefits from Sarah's natural curiosity and her dedication to understanding cultural traditions as she explores and addresses environmental problems. This attitude informs our holistic approach to conservation and economic development.

Read more about our Results Through Science.

Salvador Sánchez, natural leader...for nature

From humble origins, Salvador Sánchez, was elected as a community leader in the small fishing village of Ostional, near San Juan del Sur, became a conservationist, and is now a respected leader and successful entrepreneur. This is his story.

(Adapted from the Spanish piece written by Adelayde Rivas Sotelo)


Natural Leader
Ostional is a small fishing community 24 kilometers south of the San Juan del Sur Harbor, in Rivas, Nicaragua's southwestern-most province. Ostional is nestled at the edge of the tropical dry forest where it meets the rocky Pacific coastline.
In recent years, the 300 families of Ostional have watched as the wildlife and landscape have been threatened and degraded by deforestation, fires, and pollution.

Ostional also counts among its inhabitants an entrepreneur and popular community leader by the name of Salvador Sánchez. At 32, Salvador has earned the confidence of everyone in Ostional, young and old. They all respect and admire his efforts to improve their community.

The youngest of ten children, Salvador is passionate about the pursuit of knowledge. He studied mechanical engineering, but dropped out for various reasons.

"Thanks to my brother, Jose Maria Sanchez," Salvador shares. "I was motivated to organize people. He became a deputy. I wanted to understand policy procedures and work for the people of my community."

Becoming an Environmental Leader
In 1996 Salvador Sánchez grew concerned about sea turtles. "I witnessed the poaching of turtle eggs. I couldn't make sense of what was happening around me, because I didn't have to take turtle eggs to survive," Salvador explains. So he asked himself "why did anyone else?"

That's when Salvador began to investigate environmental law. Then, with the help of his brother, the deputy, he started his career as an elected official, running on an environmental platform, and working to protect sea turtles, eliminate trash, slow deforestation, and minimize beach pollution.

"I felt a need to work on these issues" Salvador says "and then a year ago I came across an NGO called Paso Pacífico, which helped me actualize some of these projects."

Capacity Building: Investing in Our Future
Eager to become an effective leader, Salvador Sánchez enrolled courses on conflict resolution and watershed management. This dedication to learning earned him the respect of the community.

"For me, training is very important because it allows me to know and understand many issues better than I did before. I now see and appreciate much more that we Nicaraguans have," Salvador explains.

He talked about his recent participation in a seminar on the Effective Management of Protected Areas. He and his colleagues hosted a group of rangers from all over Nicaragua and Costa Rica and shared their experiences on the subject.

"The project was funded by Paso Pacífico Este thanks to support from foreign agencies, like USAID. In turn, we've opened doors to young entrepreneurs in Ostional, because we can further transmit the knowledge and information."

Currently, Salvador Sánchez directs Paso Pacífico's team of rangers in the Ostional area. Together, they are charged with a reforestation program, and preserving the natural resources of Nicaragua's Pacific Coast.

"The functions of my role include managing the ranger program, the incentive payments for conservation, environmental education, and reforestation."

Sánchez saids that education is the best way to raise awareness in children and young people. "It's hard to change attitudes among the old, but for young people it's not too late."
Tourism Entrepreneur
In parallel to his position as a professional conservationist, Salvador and his wife Carolina along with their son Diego, run a small bed and breakfast for tourists visiting Ostional.

"Before taking the job with Paso Pacífico, I built two small cabins near the sea, where we offer food and lodging, and area tours. We offer dive tours, kayaking, and birdwatching expeditions."

Salvador has managed to demonstrate that the right approach to sustainable natural resource management is profitable.

"We still have much to learn. Sustainable tourism is a reality thanks to Paso Pacífico, and I am proud to be a part of this organization and help change attitudes, because I can be an example for others."

Fotos: Salvador Sánchez, líder comunitario de Ostional y Guarda
Recursos de Paso Pacífico/foto: Adelayde Rivas Sotelo