By Matthew Power2 January 2014 (Outside Magazine) – It was only eight o’clock on the evening of 30 May 2013, but the beach was completely dark. The moon hadn’t yet risen above Playa Moín, a 15-mile-long strand of mangrove and palm on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. A two-door Suzuki 4×4 bumped along a rough track […]
By Mark Schleifstein6 December 2013 (The Times-Picayune) – The extensive damage caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the ensuing cleanup efforts to natural resources along the shoreline and in deepwater habitats of the Gulf of Mexico were outlined for the first time Friday (Dec. 6) in a comprehensive environmental assessment. The assessment, […]
By David McFadden 6 October 2013 CASCADE, Jamaica (AP) – Crocodiles were once so abundant along the salty rim of southern Jamaica that images of their toothy jaws and spiny armour crown the tropical island’s coat of arms and are stenciled on the bumpers of military vehicles. Now, the big reptiles are increasingly difficult to […]
By Lindsay Fendt 3 September 2013 (Tico Times) – Hours before his murder, sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora came upon poachers digging up turtle eggs at the notoriously dangerous Moín Beach, near Limón on Costa Rica’s northern Caribbean coast. Mora reasoned with the poachers, perhaps explaining that leatherbacks – enormous, prehistoric-looking turtles – are endangered. […]
By Zach Dyer 26 August 2013 CABO BLANCO, Puntarenas (The Tico Times) – With the Pacific Ocean crashing against the beach at Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve, the Costa Rican National System of Conservation Areas and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy (MINAE) posthumously honored Jairo Mora for his dedication to marine conservation during […]
By Lindsay Fendt and Zachary Dyer 31 July 2013 Two months after the 26-year-old turtle conservationist was murdered on a Caribbean beach, police conduct several raids on the Caribbean coast and have at least 6 suspects in custody. More arrests are expected, police say. MOÍN, Limón (Tico Times) – Shortly after 5 a.m. on Wednesday, […]
By Lindsay Fendt 9 July 2013 (Tico Times) – The murder of 26-year-old Jairo Mora in late May exposed cracks in the country’s international environmental image, and proved that protecting nature sometimes has a terrible cost. Costa Rican park rangers switched out their muck boots for loafers and converged on San José two weeks ago […]
By Steve Connor, Vancouver 18 February 2012 The indiscriminate slaughter of vast numbers of turtles, sharks, albatrosses, and other endangered marine animals that get unintentionally caught by fishermen as “by-catch” could be prevented by a radical proposal of mobile marine reserves, scientists said yesterday. Protected areas of the ocean where commercial fishing is banned would […]
By David McNeill 3 February 2012 TOKYO – Researchers working around Japan’s disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life. In the first major study of the impact of the world’s worst nuclear crisis […]
24 January 2012 (Radio New Zealand) – Salvage work on the Rena reached a milestone on Tuesday with all containers holding hazardous material now removed from the upper decks of the vessel. Thirty-two containers of dangerous goods, including flammable and toxic chemicals, were on board the Rena when it ran aground on Astrolabe Reef on […]