Nature Air

This July 14th at 8 a.m., hundreds of people will gather along Tortuguero’s dark, sandy beach to send off Costa Rica’s green turtle competitor in the 5th annual Tour de Turtles Migration Marathon. On July 14-15, Sea Turtle Conservancy staff will attach a satellite-transmitter on a green sea turtle as a part of mock sea [...]

NatureKids, a Costa Rican NGO dedicated to working and bettering the futures of low-income families, has reached a milestone this month with a record number of students now enrolled at the Drake Bay school in the Osa Peninsula.

The Pacific and gulf waters around the Osa Peninsula as far north as Uvita and Dominical represent the only marine zone in the world where humpback whales from both Northern and Southern Hemispheres co-exist, creating a mecca for whale watching enthusiasts. The Northern humpback whales arrive to Costa Rican waters in late October and stay [...]

In a country known for sustainable tourism, the sport fishing industry has also established norms to contribute to the well-being and sustainability of the marine habitat and local communities. According to a 2009 study conducted by the University of Costa Rica, 22 percent of high season tourists come to Costa Rica for sport fishing. The [...]

Even the most experienced travelers often stumble over the travel logistics of getting from point A to B in Costa Rica – a country relative to the size of West Virginia. When steep cloud-encrusted mountain highways, frequent river-crossings and narrow one lane roads mix with hard rains and harder sunshine, they create less than favorable [...]

Costa Rica, a veteran tourist destination that was put on the map by roaming surfers in the 1960s, is as popular as ever. Thanks to its sustainability initiatives and focus on quality service and tourism products, Costa Rica continues to top “Top Places to Visit” charts. To start of the year, the country has already [...]

If you are trying to pack a tropical escape into just one week, like many travelers trying to stretch precious few vacation days, the Nature Air Pass is the perfect solution to make your trip work. Unlimited flights on Nature Air will make connecting several dramatically different vacation spots into one action-packed itinerary a piece [...]

With our photographer on a big paint horse synonymous with the mounts of the American Comanche and myself on a small mixed Costa Rican mountain horse, we made the several hour journey through rivers and up mountains to visit the reserve of the only indigenous people on the Osa Peninsula – the Guaymi de Osa.

Water is the source of life and its nurturer. It has the power to ferociously destroy life and then gently recreate it. This liquid elixir gathers in the high country, often collecting in lakes, and sometimes flowing to the sea through an intricate series of streams and rivers. There is no more important resource on [...]

A recent Op-Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times, and a letter written to us by a loyal ecotourist to Costa Rica, highlight the crux of the conflict relating to Las Baulas Marine National Park. It is not simply about the passage of Expediente No. 17.383 to downgrade the park to a wildlife [...]

The most compelling case to be made on behalf of retaining Las Baulas de Guanacaste Marine National Park in its present status comes from a report initiated by the same government now choosing to ignore its findings. In 2008, at the request of the Arias government, a group of experts was brought together as the [...]

It would appear that the major accomplishment of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 held in Copenhagen is consensus that global warming is indeed a serious challenge and we must do something about it. While this observation is somewhat sarcastic, it is likely closer to the mark than measuring how far it actually went [...]

Environmental eyes are all on Copenhagen over the next several weeks. If you are reading this, you likely know that is the location for COP 15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference. In spite of recent scandals attempting to debunk the science of global warming, there is a growing international will to finally do something [...]

The debate over Proyecto de Ley 17.383,which proposes to downgrade Las Baulas National Park to a wildlife refuge, revolves around three areas: legal precedent, expropriation, and science. The legal debate is actually quite one sided. First, Las Baulas was declared a national park by executive decree 20518 in 1991, followed by law number 7524 authorizing [...]

The government of Costa Rica has no legal precedent or scientific evidence to justify its desire to downgrade Las Baulas National Park to a wildlife refuge, thereby guaranteeing the extinction of the critically endangered Leatherback sea turtle. It would appear that their position is based on the cost of expropriating current landowners and developers, married [...]