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.