by Rod Hughes
It’s no secret that people like bananas, one of this country’s most lucrative and oldest export crops. But so do a host of tropic enemies.
Insects feast on the leaves, the dread Black Sigatoka fungus kills the plant and nematodes, parasites, gnaw on the […]
by Rod Hughes
Some of the nation’s farmers are gearing up for sugar cane and palm oil production, anticipating the promised RECOPE refinery introduction of ethanol-laced gasoline and diesel. The newspaper La Nacion has reported that 10,000 hectares of cane have been seeded as well as another 10,000 in oul palm […]
by Rod Hughes
The recent documentary film “Sharkwater” that criticized the Costa Rican government’s inaction in curbing the cruel shark finning practice in its Pacific territorial waters first resulted in official denial and then a remarkably elegant solution.
Shark finning is mainly done by foreign commercial fishing […]
by Rod Hughes
Right Hand Ignoring Left Hand’s Actions Dept. As reported in La Nacion today, functionaries of the Central Pacific Conservation Area of the Environment Ministry thought they had stopped a project that would have destroyed a mangrove swamp in Parrita, Puntarenas province. But they found to their horror that […]
by Rod Hughes
Representatives of 38 countries are meeting here to discuss ways and means of promoting sustainable commercial fishing and reducing the numbers of marine turtles and seabirds killed by current practices. And it comes, ironically, almost simultatiously with the release in U.,S. movie theaters of a documentary highly critical […]
by Rod Hughes
One would think that flooding across the country these last two months, plus emegency work on a dike, would be enough, but residents around Turrialba Volcano are keeping an eye on the giant that has been sleeping since 1886.
Residents report the past few […]
by Rod Hughes
Remember the Egyptian businessman accused of dumping the excrament from his 2,000 dairy cows into the river from which two sizeable towns take their drinking water for the past three years? (See newsfeed #1384) Welll, it appears he wasn’t quite candid with the Costa Rican Immigration authorities when […]
by Rod Hughes
Jaguar Cars and its parent company, Ford Motors, are donating $35,000 for environment projects in the Central American region. Jaguar is interested in the survival of the big cat after which the car is named and is offering $15,000 for projects to protect that […]
by Rod Hughes
Good evening, Welcome to Costa Rica. May we recommend the fish or seafood?
As the final article of a five-part series in the English-language newspaper, The Tico Times, on Costa Rica’s endangered commercial fishing industry, writer Dave Sherwood turned to the concerns of the […]
by Rod Hughes
“Well, didn’t it rain, chillun?” goes the old black spiritual song and Costa Ricans have good reason to sing it.
Torrential rainfall has driven 1,600 persons from their homes into emergency shelters, damaged or destroyed 2,000 houses, knocked out 22 […]
