Equator Prize Database

Our friends at the Equator Initiative have launched a cool Case Study Database to share the work of  their Equator Prize winners. This is a great resource for everyone interested in community-based environmental conservation.

Protecting Nicaragua's Coastline

The pioneers of the surfing industry have also been pioneers in ocean mapping, climate tracking, and ocean conservation. Naturally, surfers were the first group of tourists to venture into Nicaragua, putting its beautiful, undeveloped beaches on the map for ocean lovers worldwide. In the past 20 years, tourism in Nicaragua has increased nearly tenfold, bringing much needed economic development. In the same period, Central America's most impoverished nation – home to mangroves, turtle nesting beaches, coral reefs, and endless waves – has suffered the effects of climate change more than all but two countries in the world (per the Global 2013 Climate Risk Index).

Surfing has driven much of the tourism and economic growth along the Pacific coast, but a low cost of living has also made Nicaragua a popular destination for retirees who do not surf and for developers who threaten to close surf breaks. The surfing community is uniquely positioned to help the people of Nicaragua protect their raw coastline from the twin threats of overdevelopment and climate change. Firmly rooted in Nicaragua, Paso Pacífico's work to strengthen ecological and economic resiliency is protecting coastal communities and the coastlines themselves from the extreme weather that comes with climate change. As Nicaragua simultaneously experiences the cultural change that comes with rapid development, Paso Pacífico is also uniquely positioned to help empower surfers locally and illustrate the surfing community's commitment to ocean conservation internationally.

Economic development and the growth of Nicaragua's surfing culture are not slowing down. This is why we work with the international surfing community as well as Nicaragua's local surfers to advocate environmental conservation from ridge to reef. We use the principles of geotourism – combining destination stewardship with cultural exchange – to guide our programs, designed to protect Nicaragua's natural beauty and biodiversity, strengthen coastal communities, and help international visitors get the most out of their experience.

Protecting Nicaragua's Coastline: Ocean Conservation Education & Action 
Paso Pacífico conducts scientific surveys to assess marine health, employs rangers to protect marine wildlife, engages thousands of people in beach clean-ups, educates children about coastal ecology, and supports a grassroots ocean conservation movement growing along Nicaragua's coastline.

Promoting Surfing's Commitment to Ocean Conservation: Surf Ambassadors 
Our education and leadership programs strengthen the capacity of surfers and environmental advocates locally and help them champion the surfing community's commitment to ocean conservation internationally. Building the capacity of local leaders, we are increasing the sustainability of our own ocean conservation programs and gaining the momentum required to ensure a sustainable future for watermen and the marine creatures who share the waves with them. Eager to see young Nicaraguans share the global spotlight with their fellow surfers as ISA returns for the World Juniors and continues its Olympic bid, we are strengthening our focus on local leadership development and international networking. We aim to help the next generation of surf champions share the surfing community's inspiring stories of cooperation and conservation.

Underwater Robots to Monitor Climate Change

Over at TreeHugger:

Underwater robots, otherwise known as autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, have been exploring the ocean floor for years, documenting species and habitats and monitoring changes to the seabed, but there are spots in the ocean that are too hazardous even for robots. Deep ravines, steeply dropping canyons and other major obstacles have so far been too much for AUVs to navigate, but thanks to a new software system, that's all about to change.
...

They expect to be running missions with the new system by next year, including monitoring the sea floor for effects of bottom trawling and climate change. They also plan on adapting the system to monitor movement and change in icebergs, where the AUV would not only take photos but samples of the iceberg for study. In general, Houts and her team hope the technology leads to even smarter vehicles for scientific research.

Parrots Get A Second Chance

We're featured in the November/December issue of the Humane Society's All Animals magazine:

Down the Pacific coast almost to the Costa Rica border, a non- profit called Paso Pacifico, using money from the Loro Parque Foundation and Parrots International, pays landowners to protect parrot nests from poachers, who are usually unemployed trespassers well-known in local communities for breaking the law. Lezama, the ornithologist, has recruited two former poachers to locate nests. Participants get $10 per nest protected and $40 for each fledgling who is hatched—about the same amount a baby yellow- naped parrot would bring in the wildlife trade. It’s important income for rural residents: One woman used it to pay off her tab at the local store and set up an emergency medical fund for a daughter who has epilepsy. Across the six sites where the program is being tried out, poaching rates have dropped to 30 percent from around 90 percent

.

Can Galapagos Corals Predict the Future of Reefs Worldwide?

"This summer, a major coral survey found that some of the islands’ coral communities are showing promising signs of recovery," the Environment News Service reported last week. The article provides a pretty good overview of how climate change, ocean acidification, and warmer currents affect coral reefs.

Ocean Acidification Threatens Sea Snails

Sea snails' shells are being eaten by increasingly acidic ocean waters, the first evidence that the changing chemistry of the oceans threatens marine habitat.

Read more on CNN:

The amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is increasing, mainly because of the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, according to the World Meteorological Organization. That means that the planet's oceans, natural carbon storage facilities, are absorbing more and more of the gas, which makes them more acidic.

Compounding the potential loss of sea snails is the fact that decreased biodiversity leaves coastal environments less resilient in the face of climate change.

The study is here.

Central America’s Hidden Turtles

In the newest issue of WildHope Magazine, SEEtheWILD Director Brad Nahill writes about his adventures with sea turtle researchers from the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative (ICAPO) and Fauna & Flora International.

Our friends, operating in El Salvador and Nicaragua, are working to protect perhaps the world’s most endangered population of sea turtles. 

Read the article here: http://bit.ly/ForgottenTurtleshttp://bit.ly/ForgottenTurtles

On page 10, you'll find an update on our jaguar project.

The Dark: Nature’s Nighttime World - TV review

This synopsis of the new nature show The Dark makes us wish our cable package included BBC2:

Advanced thermal imaging cameras and motion sensitive cameras enabled the team to unearth the secrets of nocturnal animals in south and central America.

And researchers spent long hours making sure they were in the right place at the right time. It made for thrilling viewing.

Jaguars were shown moving stealthily, hunting nesting turtles by the dark of night.

...
There was remarkable footage of pumas with fresh kills but the finest sequence, however, was of a jaguar prowling at night.

The large male big cat walked past a number of turtles before revealing his real interest – the scent of another jaguar.

The breathtaking footage was captured with remarkable precision.

Another jaguar joined the parade before walking towards the camerawoman’s hide for an inspection. The footage was quite incredible and the male and female cats eventually walked away into the night, so as to breed. Later, the same camera woman found herself inches away from a jaguar, which walked up to her hide out of curiosity.

Remarkably, she didn’t scream; which probably helped to save her life.

Nicaragua: Land of 100 Bat Species

Carol L. Chambers, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Northern Arizona University, has an article about the bat survey she did with us in the new Bats magazine.

The Paso del Istmo is a narrow strip oflow mountains sand- wiched between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. This isthmus is only 12 miles (19 kilometers) wide, but it is a critical passageway for wildlife migrating between North and South America or moving locally among forests of Central America. 

And it contains an important tract of tropical dry forest - one of the most endangered forest ecosystems in the world. This forest is rapidly being replaced by croplands of beans or rice or by non-native commercial trees such as teak. Surviving old growth is often reduced to isolated patches, with dire consequences for forests and wildlife. My colleagues and I came to Nicaragua to study how forest fragmentation impacts bat communities. That research continues, but we've already made some exciting discoveries. 

I had visited this area previously with Suzanne Hagell, a former graduate student at Northern Arizona University. Using genetic analysis, she discovered that black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geojfroyi) were significantly inbred, largely because of their limited ability to move among the few large, disconnected forest patches remaining on this landscape. Bats, however, are more mobile than monkeys so their genetic diversity may be less affected by forest fragmentation. 

So instead of collecting DNA as Suzanne did, I "captured" the bat community using mist nets to intercept bats flying along forest corridors and bat detectors to capture their echolocation calls in forest patches of different sizes and levels of isolation. Bat Conservation International and the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund helped fund this project and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management loaned us the Anabat detectors.

... 

I spent December 2011 and January 2012 in the Paso del Istmo. Paso Pacifico, a Nicaraguan organization run by women dedicated to restoring and conserving ecosystems of Central America's Pacific slope, helped me locate a field station, guides and landowners willing to collaborate. We set nets across shal-low streams and rivers and quickly began capturing bats. 

Sixteen colleagues and friends from the United States and Canada helped with the mist-netting. Nicaragua's premier bat biologist, Arnulfo Ramon Medina Fitoria, also joined us. He taught me how to distinguish especially tricky species, such as those in the genus Carollia, that are identified by the shape and size of their incisors or color-banding patterns of their fur. 

Biology students Jose Gabriel Martinez Fonseca and Marlon Francisco Chaves Velasques of the Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Nicaragua became our acoustic specialists. After on-site training by Chris Corben, designer of the Anabar, and Kim Livengood ofTitley Electronics, Martinez and Chaves de- ployed bat detectors, rotating them weekly among more than 100 forest patches from January to May. 

... 

By January 26, just five days before I was due to return to the United States, we had "bagged" 40 ofNicaragua's 99 known bat species. On our 34"' night ofnetting, we felt that we had thoroughly de- scribed the bat community in our study area. On this night, our nets across a stream and along forest paths were snagging dozens of bats per hour and had even added two new species to our count. 

Then I removed a large bat from one of our nets. The bat's wing tips looked bleached white, and I wondered if the bat had an injury. I took it to the processing table and, to my great surprise, our field guides showed it to be a pale-faced bat (Phylloderma stenops). And our already-exciting evening became absolutely thrilling. 

Arnulfo pointed to the goose bumps on his arms. Although he spoke only Spanish and I only English, I was beginning to understand that this large bat in my hands, with her short brown fur and long gray wings, was, in fact, the most amazing capture of our two months of mist-netting. In Fiona Reid's Mammals of Central America and Southeast Mexico, the range map for this rare, forest-dwelling species showed only a question mark for Nicaragua. We had established the first record in the country of the pale-faced bat, a species Arnulfo had been hoping to capture for 11 years. As Arnulfo held her gently, we took pictures, documented her white wing tips and a small gland under her throat, then released her. 

That wonderful addition and yet another new capture later that night (the hairy big-eyed bat, Chiroderma villosum) brought our species count for the project to 44. And it increased the confirmed number of bat species in Nicaragua to exactly 100. I didn't even care that during our next - and last - night of netting, more than 60 percent of our captures were Jamaican fruit-eating bats that shredded my handling glove.

Messaging Ecosystem Services

From the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation blog:

People HATE the terms "ecosystem services" and "natural capital"; the very concept that nature "serves" us is unappealing; abstract cases for markets are off-putting, and; while Americans across the political spectrum are deeply and strongly committed to valuing nature, dollars are the least preferred way of doing so.

"The language surrounding ecosystem services is a jargon-rich, dense amalgam of scientific, financial, regulatory and conservation parlance. Those working to advance ecosystem services projects struggle to articulate what they're trying to do, and why their approach is more effective and efficient."

This poses a challenge for those of us working in poor areas to finance environmental conservation. We look forward to having discussions with our partners and friends in the conservation community about finding new ways of communicating our message.

International Barcode of Life

Via the ArtScience Nexus:

An interactive art show at the San Diego Natural History Museum interpreting the work of biodiversity scientists who use DNA barcoding to identify species.

Honu Has Returned to Brasilon

This weekend, Honu, the turtle we've been tracking since last month returned to Brasilon beach. You can follow her on her SeaTurtle.org page.

Nicaragua's Jaguars

This fall, Paso Pacífico's team of wildlife biologists and machete-wielding rangers faced huge spiders, floods, earthquakes, and chest-deep swamps to place two dozen camera traps in remote forest areas. Their goal? To capture the elusive jaguars long thought extinct in the tropical forests of Nicaragua.

Two years ago, an intern's camera trap captured one, proving their existence and highlighting the need for their protection. Jaguars require large areas of understory to hunt their prey, making them extremely vulnerable to deforestation. Paso Pacífico's motion-triggered cameras capture carnivores and other mammals helping scientists gauge forest health to prioritize habitat restoration efforts.

Empowering Women with Sustainable Energy

“Reducing energy poverty among women is a wise investment,” said Princess Haya, of the UAE, at this week's World Energy Forum 2012.

We agree, which is why we partner with the Portable Light Project to develop solar textile lanterns made by women in rural Nicaragua, and used by women and children without electricity in their homes, extending their reading hours.

The lanterns are also used by our turtle rangers. During the daytime, the flexible photovoltaic harvests energy from sunlight. At night, the LED light can switch from white to red so rangers can walk the beaches without disturbing the sea turtles. Each bag has the ability to charge a cell phone, which allows rangers to communicate with each other, photograph nests and upload information.

60 Years of Innovation

"We teach them that the ocean is alive and we've got to take care of it."
Jack O'Neill

"The Sea Odyssey Program has given an experience of a living ocean to 50,000 kids already."

Costs & Benefits of Preserving Nature

Mother Jones:

"A global effort to prevent all future species extinctions would cost about $80 billion a year, or $11.42 annually from every person on the planet, according to a study published last week in Science."

Scientific American:

"More specifically, the study finds that lowering the extinction risk for all of the species that are currently known to be threatened would cost the first $4 billion per year. Protecting and managing key habitats would cost an additional $76.1 billion."

500,000 Olive Ridley Sea Turtles

From the Turtle Conservancy's October Newsletter:

Eric Goode along with writer Glenn O’Brien and Kortnie Coles traveled to the Pacific coast of Mexico to witness a natural phenomenon called an arribada (the Spanish word for “arrival”). During a 3 week period, over 500,000 Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) nest on a 3 km stretch of Escobilla Beach in Oaxaca. This nesting event peaks during the month of September. Only three species of turtles exhibit this behavior: Giant South American River Turtles (Podocnemis expansa), Kemp’s Ridley Turtles (Lepidochelys kempii), and Olive Ridley Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea). The Escobilla Beach Olive Ridley arribada in Oaxaca is by far the largest.

Climate Change Threatens Staple Crops

From ClimateWire:

Beans and corn -- the staples of the Central American diet -- will become more difficult to grow as climate change progresses, according to a new study.

...

Certain "hot spots" that are especially vulnerable are spread throughout the region, especially in Honduras and western Nicaragua. But other spots, including many areas in eastern Nicaragua and eastern Honduras, will become good adaptation areas for corn and beans through the 2020s.

However, Eitzinger said, moving production to these easily adaptable areas could create a land conflict with forests and risk the loss of trees. 

Hat Tip: Our friends at Climate Action Reserve

Robot Fish Patrolling for Plastics?

Over at Treehugger, you can read about "robo-fish, which were developed to look like and swim like real fish, can autonomously seek out pollution, debris and chemicals in the water and then feed information back to shore where it can be analyzed."

Maximizando Nuestro Momentum

Eleven rules for maximizing your momentum, from Paso Pacífico board member Gian Marco Palazio:

Delisting the Honu

Our friends at the Sea Turtle Restoration Project join the opposition of the delisting of the Hawaiian green sea turtle:

Turtles Face Premature Loss of Protections and Return of Hunting

Hawaiian green sea turtle populations have increased steadily since their hunting was banned and they were given federal protections and listed as threatened under the ESA in 1978. However, the Hawaiian honu is far from reaching the official government recovery goal of at least 5,000 nesters per year. Today, the population is only at about 10 percent of that goal, with an average around 390 nesting females per year between 2000-2009 in the Hawaiian archipelago, with a high of 843 in 2011. 

Tagging a Hawksbill in Nicaragua

From our friends at Fauna and Flor International and ICAPO:

Aquí les dejó un video (7 minutos) que preparamos para documentar la experiencia de marcaje satelital de tortugas carey aquí en Nicaragua en Julio pasado.

October Newsletter Online

Jaguars, coastal clean-ups, and sloth action shots!

Check out our October newsletter to learn about jaguars and coastal clean-ups, and to read our biologists' adventures in camera trapping.

Is Climate Change Shrinking Fish?

Sunday's Guardian:

Global warming is likely to shrink the size of fish by as much as a quarter in coming decades, according to a groundbreaking new study of the world's oceans.
...
"Our work shows a very concerning future for the oceans and so it is very important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop better fish management policies to adapt to these changes," said Cheung.

All the more reason we're glad to be working to mitigate climate change and establish sustainable fisheries in Nicaragua. Thanks to our friends at Surfrider for binging the article to our attention.

Underwater with a Hawksbill

Thanks to our friends at ICAPO, SeaTurtle.org, and Flora & Fauna International for sharing these videos with us.

Arribada, Aerial Footage

Great aerial footage of an arribada in Mexico.

International Coastal Cleanup with NICA

Paso Pacífico has been managing Nicaragua's participation in the Ocean Conservancy's annual International Coastal Cleanup for five years. This past weekend, Comunidad Connect, TESÓN, and Barrio Planta helped us round up hundreds of volunteers who picked up over 2000 pounds of trash along the beaches and waterways of several coastal communities. You can read more about it (in Spanish) at El Nuevo Diario. This coming weekend is part two of our International Coastal clean up, when we'll recruit more volunteers to pick up trash from other beaches.

Photo courtesy of NICA

For the third year in a row, we were also joined by NICA, who coordinated the cleanup on the beaches of the fishing village El Transito (pictured above), gathering 48 volunteers to work alongside 13 municipal employees who collected 4500 pounds of garbage and recyclables on Saturday.

NICA's mission is to empower Nicaragua through community development, helping the country become more self-sufficient and a greater participant in the global economy. They work on sustainability issues in rural communities and we look forward to future collaboration with them, especially after brainstorming with them at the Clinton Global Initiative this week.

Photo courtesy of Erin Orias

NICA's Individual Aid Program organizes a group of women to clean the coast three days a week for a few hours each day. After completing 78 hours of community work over a 13-week period, the women receive benefits of food and/or construction materials. Since the program was founded in 2006, El Transito Beach has been among Nicaragua's most pristine.

We are pleased to partner with NICA. When we asked how they felt about this weekend's event, they said this:

"The best part of the cleanup was that we sent the message to local people that when we join forces with other organizations and we work together, we can achieve our goal of a clean coast and show to our next generations that they can participate in this change."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

12 Miles of Paradise

Over at the WILDblog, Brad Nahill, recalls "Exploring Nicaragua's Paso del Istmo":

Brad Nahill spots a turtle
(photo by Sarah Rudeen)

We headed out by boat to explore the spectacular stretch of coast, possibly the most beautiful and dramatic of coastline that I’ve ever seen (and I live in Oregon). Crashing waves batter sloping flat rocks and white sand beaches hide behind rocky-forested outcrops. Moving north along the coast of the wildlife refuge, we stopped in front of La Flor beach, one of a handful of beaches in the world that host the arribada, a mass nesting event of olive ridley sea turtles. My years of experience being quiet around turtles on nesting beaches went right out the window as I let out a yell as a small head popped out of the water not far from our boat. The turtle heard me and dropped right back into the water, but there were plenty more bobbing around.

We were really happy to show Brad the beautiful region where we work, and are grateful for the support of his organization. SEEtheWild, which he co-founded, protects endangered wildlife through conservation travel.

Learning together

Last night we met a great group of Pepperdine students who are partnered with us for a joint financial management course provided by the Ventura County Community Foundation and Pepperdine University.

Our team includes Gemma and Reuben from southern California, and Lauren from Texas. All three are minoring in non-profit management and seem bright, well-informed, and eager to help us hone our fundraising strategies and financial planning procedures. We look forward to learning from them and working alongside them this semester.

We're grateful to Pepperdine, VCCF, and the Amgen and Weingart foundations for making this opportunity available to us.

Join us September 22nd & 29th

Our August newsletter is online

Meet a bat we didn't know existed in Nicaragua, follow a tagged sea turtle, and help us name the next turtle we tag.

Conservation in Action
On the night of June 27 on Brasilon beach in southwestern Nicaragua, a green sea turtle hauled herself ashore, dragged herself up the beach to the treeline, dug her nest, laid her eggs, and went on a walkabout.

As she began winding down, Paso Pacifico's turtle rangers covered the green turtle's eyes (turtles are very sensitive to light) and held her in place long enough to attach a SPOT5 satellite transmitter to her shell. Named Saralisa after Paso Pacifico's founders and directors Sarah Otterstrom and Liza Gonzalez, you can follow this green sea turtle — who has traveled all the way to Oaxaca, Mexico — on her tracking page at seaturtle.org.

Read more about Saralisa, her contributions to science, and more in our August newsletter.

Act Now!
Donate today and help us name the next turtle we tag.

'Batwoman' bags new bat in Nicaragua

In yesterday's Arizona Daily Sun:

NAU School of Forestry wildlife ecology professor Carol Chambers, and Nicaraguan bat expert Arnulfo Ramon Medina Fitoria netted, measured, weighed and documented the only Phylloderma stenops bat ever captured and recorded in the Central American country. This particular bat weighs about as much as 20 Hershey's kisses and usually is captured in mist nets above streams in evergreen forests.

Learn more about our research on bats by visiting our website or reading other bat posts on our blog.

Learn more about partner organization Bat Conservation International.

Presenting Alexa

We are pleased to introduce Alexa, the Hawksbill turtle to our colleagues and fellow friends of the sea. Alexa is named for Alex Gaos, co-founder of ICAPO, the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative.

Alex and Ingrid Yañez have linked many people in Central America in their efforts to discover, understand, and protect the Hawksbill populations of the Eastern Pacific.

Alexa arrived on the beach at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge in southern Nicaragua on the night of August 8th. After she nested, Paso Pacifico rangers outfitted Alexa with a satellite transmitter to track her movements and share information about her migratory patterns and habitat with the ICAPO network. 

Led by Salvador Sanchez and our director of conservation science, Dr. Kim Williams-Guillen, our rangers are professionals who take pride and care in their work monitoring Nicaragua's marine wildlife and their habitat.

In addition to Alex Gaos of ICAPO, we'd also like to thank Randall Arauz of PRETOMA, Cynthia Lagueux of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Jeff Seminoff of NOAA and WWF, all of whom have shared their expertise. Without their technical assistance, our sea turtle tracking project would not be possible.

 You can follow Alexa here: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?tag_id=118066 

Thank you to everyone involved in efforts to promote the protection of the mysterious and beautiful Hawksbill.

 - Team Paso Pacifico

Presentando Alexa

Querido Amigos y Compañeros del mar,

Quiero presentarles a la tortuga Carey, ALEXA. Ella es bendecida con su nombre en honor a nuestro dinámico y motivador líder Alex Gaos.

Gracias a Alex e Ingrid todos somos vinculados como amigos y socios en la urgente causa de descubrir y proteger a la tortuga Carey del Pacífico Oriental.

Alexa arribó a una playa del sur pacífico de Nicaragua (ubicado en el RVS La Flor, Rivas, Nicaragua) durante una noche pacífica del día 8 de agosto. Después de anidar, los guardaparques de Paso Pacífico le colocaron un transmisor satelital para seguir sus movimientos y para compartir la nueva información generada con esta red. También, en el espíritu colaborativo de ICAPO, los guardaparques aprovecharon para compartir y enseñar a un ‘huevero’ local la importancia de la tortuga Carey.

Quiero felicitar y agradecer a nuestros Guardaparques, liderados por Salvador Sanchez, por su profesionalismo y seriedad en el cuido y monitoreo de las tortugas, así también reconocer a Dr. Kim Williams-Guillen quien ahora coordina nuestros programas científicos, incluyendo los transmisores y su mapeo. También quiero agradecer a Alex Gaos (ICAPO), Randall Arauz (PRETOMA), Cynthia Lagueux (WCS) y Jeff Seminoff (NOAA, WWF) quienes han compartido sus conocimientos técnicos sobre colocar transmisores libremente y que sin esa asistencia técnico, no seria posible este logro. También debo reconocer la generosidad de la Embajada Real de Dinamarca y el apoyo institucional de MARENA.

Alexa ya se fue para Costa Rica y estamos agradecidos por los esfuerzos de PRETOMA y otros por protegerla mientras anda forrajeando por ahí.

Puedan seguir la aquí

http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?tag_id=118066

Yo sé que hablo por todos en desearle a Alexa un viaje sano y seguro. También hablo por todos en agradecer a Alex e Ingrid por sus esfuerzos infatigables por promover la protección de esta misteriosa y bella tortuga.

Un saludo caluroso,

El Equipo de Paso Pacífico

Nicaragua

Recognizing Paso Pacifico's Rangers

Salvador Sanchez has been selected to travel to Argentina on a full scholarship for the eighth annual Latin American regional ranger training course. We're pleased that Salvador has been selected as the fourth Paso Pacifico ranger to represent Nicaragua in this prestigious program.

We're proud of Salvador and all of our rangers, and we're grateful to Rick Smith and the Turner Foundation for their help building our successful ranger programs.

California's Official Marine Reptile

The California state Senate voted this week to make the endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle the official marine reptile of California. Assuming Governor Jerry Brown signs the legislation into law, October 15th will officially be Leatherback Conservation Day in the state of California. Mark your calendars!

Paso Pacifico's head turtle ranger, Salvador Sanchez,
inspects a leatherback turtle on one of the beaches
where we work to protect sea turtle nests.

Every year leatherbacks migrate from the warmer waters off the coast of Central America where they nest to colder waters off California's coast where they feed on jellyfish. Considering our US headquarters are located in Ventura and the turtle nesting beaches we protect are in Nicaragua, the symbolism of the leatherbacks' annual migration is especially meaningful to us. We'll be looking to partner with other conservation organizations to observe the first ever Leatherback Conservation Day in California.

Please contact us if you're interested in recognizing Leatherback Conservation Day: wendy (at) pasopacifico.org

The Tortoise

Our friends at the Turtle Conservancy have launched The Tortoise, their new magazine dedicated to the appreciation and conservation of tortoises and turtles and their habitats worldwide.

“Turtles and tortoises have been on our earth for more than 200 million years, before the great dinosaurs roamed the planet, and today they face unprecedented challenges for their survival. No vertebrate Order has a greater percentage of species facing extinction. This publication is about the wonder of turtles and tortoises and about the conservation challenges they face,” says Eric Goode, one of the magazine editors and President of the Turtle Conservancy.

Bat Calls

A team from Bats Conservation International, Paso Pacifico,
 and MARENA studies bats at Volcano Masaya National Park.

Bats are essential to ecosystem health and their populations are dwindling around the world, so it is important to understand individual bat species, bat populations, and, of course, the reasons for their decline. In Nicaragua, we study bat populations and their insect diets because we're considered not just with ecological health, but also with the economic success of Nicaraguan farmers who rely on bats to perform ecosystem services ranging from pollination to pet control.

In the Paso del Istmo biological corridor where we work, there are at least 44 species of bat, which we identify using night photography and by collecting bat guano. By analyzing the DNA in bat excrement, we gather information about what bat species are present and what species of insect they've been consuming.

In Europe, scientists analyze bat calls to understand the various species and their migration patterns. As evolutionary biologist, Kate Jones, of the Zoological Society of London writes at the Independent, "bats leak information about themselves into their environment by emitting high frequency sound – echolocation calls – to navigate and find food.  We can record this sound in standardised ways and identify the species from its call to track changes in bat populations over time."

Jones runs iBats -- the Indicator Bats Program, which helps citizen scientists contribute to biodiversity monitoring for the global conservation community. International monitoring efforts allowed scientists to track bats' migration across borders, but difficulty differentiating among various bat calls meant dispersed data sets were hard to compare. Jones and her team are changing that, developing "an identification system that can be used by anybody."

Their new iBatsID technology, presented today in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Technology, "is able to correctly identify most European bat species 80 per cent or more of the time," making data sets more reliable and easier to compare. Better understanding leads to more effective conservation efforts, so iBatsID is good news for bat scientists, bats, and the people who rely on the ecosystem services bats provide.

To get a better idea of what bat calls sound like, listen this piece from this week's Sunday Weekend Edition on NPR:

For the past five years, bats have been disappearing at an alarming rate, falling prey to a mysterious disease called white-nose syndrome. But they're making an eerie comeback in a new audio exhibit at a national park in Vermont. The exhibit features manipulated recordings of bat calls that are funneled through glass vessels hanging from a studio ceiling. 

Bats emit high-frequency sounds that create echoes to help them navigate and detect predators. Most of these sounds are inaudible to the human ear, but they can be recorded using special machines and software that lower the frequencies into the range humans can hear.

In Nicaragua, we've been monitoring bat calls ourselves. Working with our partners at Bat Conservation International, we've been placing AnaBat systems to record and monitor bat activity across the Paso del Istmo. Rangers at Masaya National Park (like the one pictured above) will share what we learn from our monitoring with visitors and encourage them to help us protect bats and their habitat.

With coverage like the pieces above, we're optimistic about the future of bats. Understanding the economic and ecological importance of our flying mammalian friends, and recruiting citizen scientists, are important steps in bat conservation.

You can contribute to our bat conservation efforts by making a donation today.

Tracking Saralisa

Saralisa, the green sea turtle we tagged in June, is off the coast of El Salvador. She has traveled a long way and is now in the waters where two of the turtles recently tagged by ICAPO have run into trouble. One was blown up by dynamite fishing, the other caught in a fishing net (illustrating the importance of sustainable fisheries).

We'll be watching Saralisa very closely over the next few days. You can track her progress with us at seaturtle.org.

The results are in

In ten days on Playa Colorado for the ISA World Masters Surfing Championship, we hauled out 21000 pounds of garbage and 3000 pounds of recycables.

Thanks again to partner organizations RENISA and Proyecto TESÓN who helped us keep the beaches clean.

From El Salvador: Hawksbills in the News

Sadly, today's batch of links includes news of the deaths of two critically endangered Hawksbills, both of whom were tagged by ICAPO earlier this summer.

This video from Media Center ElSalvador.com (in Spanish) features interviews with ICAPO staff, as well as mangrove conservationists, and provides a thorough overview of the significance of the lessons learned from these particular turtles, one of whom died as a result of fishing with explosives, the other after getting stuck in a fishing net.

This video from ContraPuntoTV (also in Spanish) features a community festival celebrating the Hawksbills who were tagged for science, illustrating the increasing awareness of the importance of local Hawksbill turtle populations for conservation science. It also shows just how the satellite transmitters are affixed to the turtle shells.

Before the fishing accidents, this July 22nd piece at ElSalvador.com (again in Spanish) brought attention to the importance of protecting critically endangered Hawksbills and their mangrove habitat.

There is much to be learned from ICAPO's studies of the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill, and the unfortunate loss of these Hawksbills reminds us of the importance of protecting our mangroves, and continuing our work establishing sustainable fisheries in Nicaragua.

Aloha!

On July 14th the International Surfing Association World Masters Surfing Championship opened on Playa Colorado, Nicaragua, bringing the world's best surfers, surfing fans, and international media to the region where we work.

Surfwire described Playa Colorado as "a place where the jungle met the sand and the Howler Monkeys offered early-morning wake-up calls" giving the international visitors "a first-hand opportunity to see and be a part of a surf culture on the rise."

Gold Medal Team Hawaii knows a thing or two about surf culture, having invented the sport and shared it with the world. "I'm really stoked for the Hawaiian team," said women's gold medalist Rochelle Ballard. "This whole event has been about that, sharing our Aloha and our passion...I love that spirit of sharing; it's really inspiring."

Hawaii deserves congratulations for their medals and for their work in protecting the Hawaiian subpopulation of the green sea turtle or honu, whose IUCN Red List status was updated this month to species of least concern.

The IUCN's (International Union for Conservation of Nature) new honu status is the result of decades of research and conservation in Hawaii that "allowed the population to recover, and gives hope to the recovery of depleted marine turtle populations in other parts of the world."

To everyone in the international surfing community, and especially to our friends in Hawaii, felicidades, congratulations, gracias, thank you, and mahalo!

Welcome to Playa Colorado!

This is our home all week for the International Surf Association's World Masters Surfing Championship.

Here, in part, thanks to the SIMA Environmental Fund, which supports our Surf Ambassadors program for ocean conservation, we're helping with event logistics and making sure the environmental impact is minimal. Working with our RENISA and our Proyecto TESON partners at Comunidad Connect and Cafe Las Flores, we're patrolling the beach all day for litter. Playa Colorado is an important nesting beach and it's turtle nesting season, so two of our star rangers are here to patrol the beach at night for turtles.

Working in the surfing community for a few years to help ensure the local surfing community upholds the international tradition of combining a love of the waves with a commitment to clean oceans, we're excited about what this event means for coastal Nicaragua.

As reported at ESPN, "surfing, like any sport, can be a powerful mechanism for change. The people of Nicaragua are hoping this is the case."

We're pleased to join ISA in working "for the conservation and improvement of coastal environments and the protecting of surfing resources worldwide."

The Underwater Enviropreneur

For the winter/spring edition of PERC Reports, Reed Watson talked to scuba diver and reef restoration entrepreneur, Brett Howell.  As the Walker Conservation Fellow at the Georgia Aquarium, Howell hopes to illustrate that Florida's coral reefs, a hotbed of biodiversity, present opportunity for cooperation and restoration, rather than a source of conflict.

Howell works with the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF), which grows endangered species of coral in nurseries, to identify parties who benefit from (and are willing to pay for) healthy reefs. Given that reef-related eco-tourism generates $4 billion annually, Howell is well positioned to link the sellers of coral restoration (like the CRF) with potential buyers, such as the dive shops and fishing captains whose businesses depend on healthy reef ecosystems.

With our own commitment to conflict resolution and reef restoration, we are eager to watch Howell's experiment unfold.

One Turtle Saved

Fifteen years ago the hawksbill sea turtle in my hands would have been hog-tied, whisked hundreds of miles, slaughtered and carved into trinkets. 

Now, it swims free. 

On Baja’s Pacific coast, an adult male hawksbill sea turtle found its way into a fisherman’s net. In the past, for the fisherman anyway, such a thing would have been considered a stroke of good luck. The endless demand for turtle meat, eggs, skin and shell on the black market can provide a nice payday to anyone willing to endure the low-level risk of being caught. 

Hawksbill turtles, once common, are now the rarest of the rare due to decades of being hunted for their beautiful shells, which get carved into combs, broaches, and other adornments. 

These days, however, a Mexican grassroots conservation movement called GrupoTortuguero.org has challenged the old ways and shaken things up a bit. A network of thousands of fishermen, women and children count themselves among its ranks.

Among the fishermen working to save turtles, is Julio Solis, featured in this short film.


Julio Solis, A MoveShake Story from RED REEL on Vimeo.

Wallace J. Nichols, Brad Nahill, and the team at SEE Turtles and SEEtheWILD chronicle efforts to save endangered sea turtles in the inaugural issue of WildHope, their new online magazine.

Burt Talks to the Bees

Via the Sustainable Brands newsletter:

Burt’s Bees is collaborating with artists and experts at the Pollinator Partnership to generate greater public awareness about the importance of honeybees to agriculture and the threats they face.  

For such small, short-lived creatures, bees do a lot of heavy lifting to keep life on Earth in balance. In fact, an estimated one-third of the food on Earth depends on pollination by bees. Because they are instrumental to biodiversity, they are what scientists call indicator species, functioning as an alarm system for the health of ecosystems.  

... 

Nearly every scientist agrees that all bees need nesting habitats and a variety of healthy flower food to thrive - and they’re in short supply. Humans have used up all the land - we've planted crops from field edge-to-edge, lawns from yard to yard (no bee food there), and fancy ornamental plants where once scruffy natives used to stand. In most agricultural settings today, bees find only one kind of food for days and weeks on end, which is unhealthy (and perhaps boring) for the insects.  

...  

This June for National Pollinator Week, Burt’s Bees will premiere "Burt Talks to the Bees", a series of three short films created by Isabella Rossellini, actor, director and Burt impersonator. The films introduce the bees - the queen, the workers and the drones - in an effort to make viewers more sympathetic to their plight. 

The first in the video series introduces us to worker bees and how honey is made. The Sustainable Brands piece outlines many of the reasons we are active in advancing the scientific understanding of pollinators and reviving the tradition of meliponiculture.

Help Fight Fire with Fire

We echo the Nature Conservancy in saying that our hearts go out to those affected by the wildfires burning up the American West.

Just as we asked for your help raising money to plant trees in the wake of the fire at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, the Nature Conservancy is asking for your help restoring forests to reduce the risk of megafires.

As the Nature Conservancy's newsletter points out, "a new study looking back 1,500 years found no evidence for the kind of 'megafires' we are experiencing today. These large, severe wildfires are a new modern reality."

What is to blame for the new reality?

Summarizing last year's big wildfires, the Nature Conservancy's Jon Schwedler explained that "changing temperatures have simultaneously dried out forests and extended the living season for bugs that weaken our trees."

Paso Pacifico founder and director, Sarah Otterstrom, has been studying fires and forests for over a decade. A fire ecologist with an emphasis on climate change, Otterstrom is among the scientists paying attention to the links between carbon emissions and extreme weather events. Otterstrom's studies and her commitment to protecting wildlife habitat and biodiversity, are why Paso Pacifico works to mitigate climate change through reforestation in Nicaragua.

Jaguar & Her Cub Spotted on Colombian Plantation

From NatGeo DailyNews:

Jaguars currently live in isolated populations scattered across North and South America, which is part of the reason the species is listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

...

Usually, just one jaguar cub survives in a litter, so seeing two cubs alive and well is "heartwarming," he said. (Take a big cats quiz.) 

It's "important to note" that the camera traps were located on the plantation border, next to a well-preserved forest.

View more pictures (courtesy of NatGeo and Panthera) here.

Rio +20

Our friends at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry present a peek inside the Rio +20 Earth Summit, from a unique perspective, that of one of their students:

"In  1992 I was one year old, I was learning to be a person, walk, talk, eat etc. I had no idea that there was an Earth summit or even a UN."

You can follow the adventure on her blog.

Panthera’s Camera Traps Capture Jaguars On Colombian Oil Plantations

From Red Orbit:

The first ever photographs of jaguars within an oil plantation in Colombia have just been released...

Panthera, the world’s leading wild cat conservation organization, focuses solely on the study and conservation of wild cats. The camera traps placed by Panthera in the Magdalena River valley were meant to gather information about the dangers of Colombia’s growing oil plantations on the jaguar populations. Panthera’s objective is to understand how the plantations affect the jaguar’s ability to move throughout its habitat, reproduce, and the effects on species that the jaguars prey on.

Birds, bats, and bugs

Today's 60-Second Science podcast from Scientific American:

Birds and Bats Downsized Bugs

Insect size tracked with atmospheric oxygen levels, until hungry birds and bats hit the scene.

In the day of the dinosaur, insects had wingspans of nearly two-and-a-half feet. So why are today’s bugs so puny? 

Photo courtesy of Bruce Taubert Wildlife Photography
http://www.brucetaubert.com/

Birds and bats!

Researchers at U.C. Santa Cruz have published their findings on the evolution of insect size in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Visit the Scientific American site for more.

Visit our website to learn more about Neotropical Migratory Birds in Central America, or to learn how our scientists are Valuing the Ecosystem Services of Bats.

Swedish Fish?

As we honor the life and work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, let's celebrate the fact that she was right: we can peacefully co-exist with each other and with nature.

A great way to understand how is to look at community-managed sustainable fisheries.

As reported on NPR's Morning Edition, when New England's fish stocks became severely depleted, a lack of fish put a lot of fishermen out of business. One group of fishermen in Port Clyde, Maine, changed the marketing and processing of their catch in hopes of making more money on fewer fish. Chefs like Joseph Margate of Boston's Liberty Hotel are fans of this approach. “Chefs are only as good as their ingredients; technique only gets you so far. And good ingredients would be impossible without healthy lands and waters," Margate said in an interview with Nature.Org.

A few small sustainable fisheries make a big difference. 
An international team of scientists has gathered the first conclusive evidence that even small protected areas can help the whole ocean. Their study, summarized in ScienceDaily has shown that even fish populations in areas open to larger-scale commercial fishing can benefit from small-scale protections.

Paso Pacífico has a new initiative for Sustainable Fisheries and Local Resource Management and we'll keep you posted about it on our website and here on our blog. This community-building program is empowering citizen scientists to monitor and manage the natural resources their livelihoods depend on.

Sustainable fisheries are turtle friendly!
One of the reasons Paso Pacífico is so active in sustainable fisheries is to reduce the number of sea turtles caught in fishermen's nets, so we'll publish some of the findings from our initial fisheries assessment later this week, just in time for World Sea Turtle Day, June 16th. If you want to stay in the loop, sign up for our newsletter.


Update, June 14
The New York Times has published an Elinor Ostrom reading list: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/elinor-ostrom-reading-list/

World Oceans Day

Paso Pacífico works from ridge to reef to protect biodiversity and empower communities. What are we doing along coastlines and at sea?

Understanding Marine Ecology
Our Coastal Marine Research Project contributes to the scientific understanding of sea turtle populations and marine ecology.

Our science-based monitoring gauges the effectiveness of management at marine protected areas and the protection of key indicator species – like sea turtles – which are also flagship tourism species. In addition to bolstering conservation efforts, this project provides field training to young marine scientists.

Cleaning up the Coastline
We are proud to work with the Ocean Conservancy as the coordinator for Nicaragua's participation in the International Coastal Cleanup each year.

We are pleased to partner with Café las Flores and Proyecto Tesón to gather trash and recyclables along Nicaragua's coast, and we are members of the Alianza Yo No Tiro Basura! alliance against litter.

We also work with the Ocean Recovery Alliance on the Global Alert system to remind people that riverbanks are actually inland coastlines and serve as conduits for floating trash to reach the ocean, and to encourage them to take local action to solve a global problem.

Protecting Mangroves
Our community guides lead eco-tourists on kayak trips and help these visitors understand the ecological importance of threatened mangrove forests which protect the coastline from erosion and storm, and provide critical habitat for aquatic wildlife.

Supporting Nicaragua's First Sustainable Fisheries
Although their stories are largely unpublicized, a number of fishing communities have avoided self-destructive overexploitation for decades. And they do it with minimal, if any, governmenal regulation.”
Donald Leal, PERC, “Community-Run Fisheries”

Around the world, community-run fisheries are being created by fishermen who want to preserve their livelihoods for themselves and their children. From the North Atlantic to the Northern Sea, to the Caspian and the Pacific, fishermen are banding together for self-regulation of sustainable fishing practices, and in so doing are earning more money for themselves and their families.

Our Sustainable Fisheries Initiative is helping the fishermen of Nicaragua follow suit, empowering them with the science and technology necessary to gather data, assess and monitor resourcess, and determine best practices.

Protecting Critically Endangered Marine Wildlife
Sea turtles throughout the world's oceans are endangered and species such as the Leatherback and Hawksbill turtles of the eastern Pacific are nearing extinction. Both critically endangered Leatherbacks and Hawksbills, as well as olive Ridley and Pacific Green sea turtles nest along the Pacific beaches of southern Nicaragua.

Paso Pacífico's turtle rangers provide the "thin green line" between critically endangered sea turtles and would-be poachers and protectors, helping thousands of baby turtles to the sea each year.

Protecting Reefs
Our reef rangers program will build on the successes of our turtle ranger programs. We are recruiting divers to receive similar training to encourage sustainable fishing practices and serve as ambassadors for conservation in the marine community.

Creating a Culture of Coastal Conservation
Our environmental education program includes a significant component on ocean conservation, particularly for those communities lying in coastal areas where often more than half the community is involved in fishing and other ocean-related livelihoods.

Our junior ranger program is teaching coastal kids about marine ecology and developing the next generation of biodiversity stewards along Nicaragua's Pacific slope.

Our surf ambassadors program works with Nicaragua's young and growing surf community to ensure a sustainable future for watermen and the marine creatures who share the waves with them. Thanks to the SIMA Environmental Fund, we are building a strong foundation for ocean conservation and surf access through leadership development, conservation science and education, capacity building, and international networking.

Photo courtesy of
The Barrio Planta Project

In July 2012 Nicaragua will host the ISA World Masters Surfing Championship, meaning more tourists than ever, and another big surge in surfing among local Nicaraguans. We're excited about this because the surfing community has a long tradition of environmental awareness and respect for the ocean.

You can help us create a culture of conservation in coastal Nicaragua!

Summer 2012 Fundraising Goals:

Today: World Ocean Day
Goal: $500
To publish maps of critical marine wildlife habitat.

June 16th: World Sea Turtle Day
Goal: $1000
To provide one hundred days of protection at a newly identified sea turtle nesting beach.

July 14: World Surfing Championships Opening Ceremony
Goal: $2500
To help budding filmmakers highlight the Nicaraguan surfing community's commitment to ocean conservation.

Help us reach our goals. Donate today!