Nature Air

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 [...]

The New York Times has just published a story, entitled “Turtles Are Casualties of Warming in Costa Rica” and we strongly encourage you to read it. The primary focus is on the destruction already being done to turtle habitat from rising temperatures and sea levels, damaging their eggs and encroaching on their delicate nesting grounds. At [...]

Frank Paladino Ph.D. has devoted years to the study of Leatherback sea turtles in Costa Rica and all over the world. He now adds his voice to the many conservationists strongly opposed to downgrading Las Baulas National Park and threatening the survival of these magnificent creatures. Frank is a distinguished professor in the Department of [...]

Dr. Richard LaVal received an email from Alvaro Ugalde with the Voice of the Leatherback Turtles attached. He read the magazine and immediately sent a letter to the Legiislative Assembly on behalf of Las Baulas National Park and the Leatherbacks. In addition, he forwarded the magazine to colleagues and friends and provided his own introduction. [...]

What is it about preserving nature in its most pristine state that is important to us? The world existed long before we ever laid our eyes upon a magnificent crimson sunset. The geysers of Yellowstone bellowed forth their molten hot water a million years before it was declared the first national park anywhere in the [...]

The Comptroller General of Costa Rica has submitted a report to the Special Standing Committee on the Environment which fires an explosive broadside into the government plan to downgrade Las Baulas National Park to a wildlife refuge, thereby threatening the existence of the critically endangered Leatherback sea turtle. According to Article 183 of the Constitution, [...]