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