Blogs

The Tortuguero coast in Costa Rica is a 22-mile-long, desolate, volcanic black sand beach littered with driftwood and tree logs tossed up on shore from the untamed ocean. It is a wild place – like the imaginary jungle coast in Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” There is nothing but beach and low, swampy jungle for miles and miles. You can’t swim here because of rough surf, strong currents and sharks that will eat you – adding to the isolation.

Known as Costa Rica's “little Amazon” for

   Although it is no longer a rarely to find on a hotel bed a sign asking the guest to reuse his/her towel or to accept having sheets changed once every three days rather than once a day, many people still wonder if tourism is an environmentally friendly industry. Due to past mistakes the public often is cynical about tourism and it is not unusual to hear people wondering out loud if the desire to change sheets once every three days is more about saving the hotel money then about saving the envi

How many species live on Earth?

Scientists estimate roughly 8.7 million, according to a 2011 study in the journal PLoS Biology, published by the Public Library of Science. The crucial point, however, is that approximately 83% of those plant and animal species have yet to be discovered. Scientists calculate that there are probably 6.5 million species living on land, and 2.2 million in the ocean, but that 86% of land-inhabitants and 91% of ocean-dwellers are still roaming at large undiscovered, des

We set out down the beach under a leaden sky stuffed with clouds. It was 8:00 at night, close to my bedtime (I know, I’m on Costa Rica “country” time). At first it was hard to see, with the nearly full moon sliding in and out of clouds; but soon our eyes adjusted to the dimness. A light mist began to dust us, and not a soul stirred nearby.

We were on sea turtle patrol.

Five of us were decked out in dark colors to blend with the night. Sea turtles don’t like bright lights – and, ergo, light-colored

Central America forms a bridge literally between North and South America, which throughout its three million year history has served as a natural biological passageway between the two continents. In the last century, however, much of that corridor has been destroyed by farming and urbanization.

Biologists have determined that biological corridors are one of the most effective methods of conserving biodiversity to maintain genetic fluency between populations of species and prevent against their po

What if I told you there was an animal without lungs that lives on land and can grow back any limb of its body?

Crazy, you say? Well, in the Costa Rican Caribbean rainforest, there is a species of salamander that can.

Salamanders are amphibians that are typically characterized by a lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, short noses, and long tails, according to Wikipedia. There are approximately 550 species of salamanders that live in Temperate and Neotropical zones around the world.

Unique a

By Shannon Farley

Take a deep breath. Now imagine your lung capacity reduced by one-fifth. Find it a bit harder to breathe? What if that lessens?

Now take your focus out to a global view, and you have a clear picture of what is happening in the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon is the largest contiguous tropical forest in the world, and releases 20% of the world’s life-giving oxygen. Today in 2012, due to mostly slash-and-burn deforestation, nearly one-fifth of the Amazon’s forest has been cleared (Am

From NMT Images

Travel honchos in the travel and tourism industry are running a bit scared.

With all the hand-wringing about climate change/global warming, the execs wondered if they are about to become the next Exxon Valdez of travel, villains in the making: major contributors to global pollution.

Will the government, they worried, come out with a slogan: “Save the Planet. Travel Less?“

Actually air travel pumps far less carbon dioxide into the world’s atmosphere than automobiles. But carbons