Tourism sector unites in fight against climatic change

Taken from: www.larepublica.net

Being conscious that the main commodity in Costa Rica is its nature, diverse sectors of the tourism industry have implemented their own regulations to diminish global warming, in agreement with the National Strategy of Climatic Change (ENCC). These measures that have been adopted have to do with the maximization of resources and the reduction on the production carbon that is created by human activities.

In this direction, the National Chamber of Tourism, the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism and other companies have developed a plan of action.

The proposals have to do with the renewable energy sources use and the sensitizing of suppliers, employees and tourists about the importance to be "ecosensitive".

"Little by little, the tourists will prefer those businesses that are known to be ecosensitive", explained Patricia Forero, director of Investigation and Development of Horizontes Tour Operator.

In this case, the business was in charge of measuring the quantity of its carbon dioxide emissions, and then to compensate this they planted trees alongside the City Hall of San José.

Besides, a campaign was developed to raise consciousness toward the employees, directed to the energy saving and the consequences of the global warming.

Un ejemplo de utilización máxima de recursos es Mapache Rent-a-Car. Actualmente la arrendadora de autos tiene en marcha un plan de reutilización del agua. “Tomamos el agua jabonosa del lavado de los carros, y la purificamos de manera que vuelva a ser usada. Así no contaminamos más agua limpia”, comentó Alfredo Cruz, asistente de gerencia de la empresa.

The increase in temperature may be of 4.4 degrees Celsius in 2100, being carbon dioxide the main cause of this temperature raise, according to the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climatic Change. The levels of this gas in the atmosphere have enlarged a whopping 80% from 1970 to the present.

An example of maximum utilization of resources is Mapache Rent-a-Car. At present the company has in motion plans to recycle water that’s been used by them. "We take the soapy water of the cars we wash, and we purify it so that it may be used again. Thus we won’t be contaminating more clean water", commented Alfredo Cruz, assistant manager of the business.

Archaeological treasures return home

Taken from: www.elfinancierocr.com

The evolution of the Costa Rican pre-colombian cultures is the theme of the exposition that the National Museum inaugurated Friday December 10, in the room of temporary expositions.

This is a collection that will be available to the public for a year, and that shows a total of 225 artifacts, the majority of which haven’t been shown previously to the public.

All the pieces are property of the National Museum, but the idea of this proposal was elaborated as a group with Canadian experts: the exhibition, titled Costa Rica land of wonders, is a work of the Museum Pointe á Calliere of Montreal and the National Museum.

According to Ricardo Vásquez, archaeologist and curator of the exhibit, the exposition is divided into five thematic axes, whose titles reflect the growth of the plants they ate, human societies, their development and decadence

"This will permit the visitor to understand the variety of cultural expressions that existed in Nicoya, the Central Region and in the three sub regions of the Pacific", the curator indicated.

According to the communications department of the National Museum, the collection presents pieces of jade, stone, gold and ceramics. The majesty, the detail and the artistic quality are one of the main attractions for the public.

This exhibit will permit the visitors to know about the hierarchies in the different pre-Colombian groups, the development of its art, the relation with the nature and the own biodiversity of the different periods, among others themes.

The exhibition is open to the public every day from 8:30 am to 4 p.m. In December the 2010 the collection will travel to Rome.

Woman will swim across Golf Dulce in an effort to protect the marine ecosystems will swim

Taken from: www.nacion.com

Renate Herberger, a German with a disability that impedes her to stay standing for a long time, will swim Golfo Dulce to create conscience on the importance of the fight on the preservation of marine ecosystems. This is the third time that she comes to Costa Rica with this mission.

Her passion for swimming was born after she suffered a thrombosis in her left leg. This injury doesn’t permit her to be standing or to walk for long periods of time. Swimming became a form of therapy for her, and later in her way to generate social conscience.

"The coasts are rich places in marine sanctuaries that have been threatened by fishing in such a great scale. What I want is to do an urgent call to authorities to protect the marine species that are endangered, like the turtles and sharks", said Herberger.

The crossing of Golfo Dulce will begin this Thursday 17 of December and will finish December 24.

After that, she will try to swim from Punta Burica in the southernmost part of Costa Rica, to Bahia Salinas, in Guanacaste, really close to the border with Nicaragua.

59% of Latin-Americans support democracy

Taken from: www.elfinancierocr.com

The support of democracy in Latin America descended to 54% in the year 2007 and then rose to 57% in 2008 to end up at 59% in the year 2009.

While the people with greater education now support democracy than ever before, the less educated currently support democracy less than in the past.

According to the annual publication Latinobarómetro, this difference implies that the crisis has had an impact to the lowest adhesion, that they’re the less educated.

"This crisis may have opened the gap in the way as the adhesion evolves to democracy, becoming more critical to those who were impacted, and more positive to those who were less impacted", emphasizes the document.

It is necessary to observe the differences by country: 8 5% of Venezuelans approve the democracy, followed by the Uruguayans (81%); 74% of the Costa Ricans approve of democracy.

Another detail to point out is that 57% of the citizens say that there cannot be democracy without congress.

New mural unites art and science

Taken from: www.nacion.com

A new mural in the National Center of Biotech Innovations (Cenibiot) was officially inaugurated last Tuesday morning.

The work of muralist Eduardo Torijano measures 160 square meters and presents images relating to biotechnology and science in general, from DNA to the Vitruvius Man and the cog as a symbol of the industry.

The Cenibiot is a laboratory where microorganisms and Costa Rican plants are investigated with diverse objectives. For example, they seek to improve the productive processes of an industry, and are on a mission to find new biofuels and better processes to get rid of organic waste.

The mural is located in the building Franklin Chang Díaz, where the old AID was located, in Pavas. The mural can be found in the north sector of the building.

Belen businesses present different techniques for environment contamination

Taken from: www.nacion.com

Businesses situated in the district of Belen have presented different techniques that will be utilized to prevent environment contamination.

This occurred during the II Business Fair with the help of the city hall of Belen, and which is believed that there was an attendance of 3,500 people.

Battery recovery, recycling and tree planting, among others projects, are part of the proposals.

INA graduated advanced English technicians

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The National Institute of Learning (INA) recently graduated 1,000 people that completed the courses of advanced English, or level C1.

Such classes are part of the program Multilingual Costa Rica that tries to expand the English language among Costa Ricans.

The INA reported that the titles were delivered in the Formation Center of an José, located in the Don Bosco neighborhood.

The graduates are certified with the management of the English language, according to the European Common Framework.

Eight schools reduce by 70% their consumption of water

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The above statement happened thanks to the A&A effort in changing the whole tubing system in such schools.

The centers that were benefited were: Colegio Instituto de Guanacaste, Unidad Pedagógica de Cuatro Reinas de Tibás, Kinder María Jiménez de Desamparados, Escuela Riojalán de Puntarenas, Escuela Invu Las Cañas de Alajuela, Escuela San Pablo de Turrubares, Escuela Rogelio Fernández and el Liceo de Esparza.

The reduction in the consumption of water is of 2 million liters less each month in each educational center.

Deredia publishes two books about his work

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The Costa Rican artist Jorge Jimenez Deredia will be presenting in Costa Rica two books in which various specialists analyze his sculpture creations.

Next Wednesday 25^th of November at 6:30 PM the artist will share at Libreria Internacional at the Multiplaza mall with the public his two books: Deredia and his symbolism and Deredia to Rome, these two will be on sale in the country since this date.

The first publication is a detailed analysis created by the Italian art historian Cristina Giammoro which deals on Jimenez Deredia’s art sculptures and the philosophical thinking involved with them. The art historian carries out a comprehensive path through Jiménez Deredia’s work since his beginning as an artist to his more recent project called The Peace Route. The texts in this book are accompanied with photographs and drawings that will aid in the understanding of the sculptures of the renowned artist.

The second book is the luxurious catalogue that accompanied the sculpture show in which Jiménez Deredia presented in the famous Palace of Expositions in Rome between July and September of this year.

Such catalogue contains elaborate texts written by famous Italian art critics as Antonio Aimi, Fabio Isman, Enrico Crispolti and Francesco Buranelli.

CRT Team – 20th Anniversary

CRT Team celebrates this year 20 years of management and tourism operation in our country. As part of our celebration for so many years of continuous work and satisfaction with the effort given to thousands of customers, it was considered valuable to share this celebration with those entities whose work is the welfare of those who most need our help.

The principles of Sustainable Tourism and Corporate Social Responsibility has led us to collaborate in many common good activities, and this time we are honored to invite the Nursing Home Santiago Crespo from Alajuela to visit INBioparque and offer seniors and representatives of this institution a time for relaxation and entertainment.

This activity took place on last November 3^rd, 2009 which had the participation of colleagues from various departments, which assisted in the event and our partners, which were allowed to participate in this activity. We are very proud of the response obtained with this initiative and will continue working for the social projection in CRT not only as an action itself but as an enterprising culture.

Hotel Riu in Matapalo Beach, Guanacaste opens its doors

The spanish hotel chain Riu opened its first hotel in Costa Rica.  The Riu hotel in Guanacaste is a 5 star resort that is literally a few feet away from Matapalo beach.  Such hotel is characterized for its contemporary design and by the white sands of its beach.  The hotel counts on several ammenities such as various restaurants, 3 bars, a big pool with jacuzzi, a spa, gymnasium, sauna, casino and a dance floor. 

Riu hotel has 701 rooms with all the commodities to assure its clients the best and highest quality.  Its restaurants are comprised of an extensive range of selections and they are of all-inclusive type.

For more information please click here

CRT Team cleans river

On September 26, 2009; CRT Team collaborated with a “Cleaning of a River in Escazú”. This activity was part of the I National Cleanup Week organized by the Terra Nostra Association and is part of the world's largest voluntary movement of its kind promoted by The Ocean Conservancy.

At the end of the river cleaning, a counting and sorting of the different materials that were found was done, and that information was adjoined to national and international statistics.

Books of the Patrimony Center have become available on the Internet

The investigations that are published yearly the Patrimony Center of the Culture Department are already within reach of web surfers in the site: www.educatico.ed.cr 

This entry is from the Public Education Department, but thanks to an alliance with the Culture Department the section "Costa Rican Culture" offers digital versions of the different investigations on folklore, traditions, gastronomy, festivities, architecture and history that are developed each year the specialists of the Patrimony Center. 

Up to now there’s available seven documents in the website published in years prior 2009, among them Adobe Houses, elaborated by the investigators Elena Troyo and Fernando González; La jícara of Giselle Chang and Fernando González, and Ceramist Communities of Carlos Zamora and Fernando González. 

Six publications will be added gradually which have been published in 2009 by the Patrimony Center.  Of these new investigations there’s already online the National Tourism Circuit Collection, a series of tourist guides that offer comprehensive maps and information on the architectural milestones and the places of greater hereditary value of the provinces of Costa Rica.

In the next few weeks the remainder of the publications will be available online.  Some of these articles will be La Sabana: a park with history, General Cemetery of San José, The ornamentation of carretas in Costa Rica: origins and tendencies and historic Synthesis of the architectural structures of the old National Factory of Liquors.  

Costa Rica and Panama unite efforts against drug trafficking

The presence of illegal drug traficking groups in the border of Costa Rica and Panama has motivated both Governments to fortify patrolling and vigilance in order to reduce drug trafficking. 

This is one of the points that has become part of the Association Agreement signed yesterday in the Presidential Headquarters of Panama by the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, and its Panamanian counterpart, Ricardo Martinelli.

In this sense, the Panamanian chancellor, Juan Carlos Varela, emphasized yesterday in a press conference, the decision of both Governments to take measures to fortify the frontier security. 

"The presence of illegal groups that want to utilize our countries to be able to move drug northward has become a problem", assured Varela. 

Due to this, like part of the agreement, there will be a creation of a binational commission that will take care of finding a solution to such threat. 

The Agreement also covers other areas of interest for the two countries, as explained by the Costa Rican chancellor, Bruno Stagno, who also witnessed the signing of the agreement. 

According to Stagno, the document centers around three large pillars: political dialogue, cooperation and commercial environment, that is supported by the Free Trade Agreement that was already signed by both nations in 2002. 

Besides, Costa Rica vouched for Panama to be incorporated in the negotiations with the European Union, without the need to adhere to the System of Economic Integration of Central America. 

The foreign trade minister, Vinicio Ruiz, who was also present in the signing of the treaty, has followed such reunions closely. 

President Arias and Panamanian president Martinelli told the press that they discussed the possibility to build a railroad that connects both countries. 

Nevertheless, they coincided that for the time being such railroad is nothing more than a dream and an idea.

"If over a hundred years ago the Panamanians built a channel, why not dream of a railroad?  Such a thing would be marvelous.  It would require an extremely abundant investment and prior feasibility studies", commented president Arias.  

Biography of president Oscar Arias done by Biography Channel

The Biography Channel has developed a comprehensive biography of current Costa Rican president and Nobel laureate Oscar Arias. His life story may be viewed online in YouTube (Available only in Spanish)

Curious silhouettes are installed in Luján neighborhood

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The neighbors of neighborhood Luján were surprised by the visit of a group of enigmatic silhouettes that were installed in one of the walls of the old Dos Pinos building.

These curious figures – that besides projecting their shadow in the street– form part of the artistic intervention of the Costa Rican artist Susana Sánchez.

Her work is part of the project "In the street", that has been developed since 2006 by the Museum of Art and Contemporary Design (MADC) which invites artists to do creative interventions in public spaces of San José.

A white wall, of six meters long for three meters high, has become the canvas where several figures of black color symbolize the perennial tracks that leave the inhabitants of the cities in different urban spaces. Each one of the silhouettes reflects its shadow in the street.

The artist plants the silhouettes as tracks of human beings in a city. "If the walls, the streets, the banks, the parks or the buildings could speak, they would have many interesting stories that reveal the life in the metropolises", affirmed Sánchez.

The uniform silhouettes looks forward at himself, just as hundreds of pedestrians who cross among their own silhouettes every day in the urban streets.

While Sánchez and other collaborators worked in their artwork, passer-bys and neighbors approached to observe closely the visiting silhouettes. "I like a lot of what they’re doing, it’s pretty. The walls are seen prettier with these shapes than with all the graffiti that was once before", said little María Milagro, a nine year old girl who lives just in front of the wall that was painted.

The artist will also carry out an intervention in the park of the Mexico neighborhood, the 28th of October. This time, the silhouettes will be done with vinyl adhesive and they will be "seated" on the seats in the park.

Coffee quintal reached its better price in 12 months

Taken from: www.nacion.com

The coffee quintal reached this past Tuesday its best price in the past twelve months: $144, 45.

Guido Vargas, president of the Icafé, attributed this upward trend due to the decrease of the world production of grain, especially that of countries as Brazil, the main exporter.

"The cellars of the toasters (in the consuming countries) diminished their stock of the grain; and the silos of the producers aren’t with a lot of coffee. Gourmet coffee has been scarce and that would explain the prices that see now", reasoned Vargas.

The experts recognized that Costa Rica has known to take advantage of this scarcity before, especially because the country is exporting this 2009-2010 more grain than during the period 2008-2009, according to estimations of Icafé.

To date, our country has exported 900,000 quintals; this is a 40% of the total of the production of the current period, reckoned in 2.26 million faneas of coffee in fruit.

Both experts indicated that the country achieved to date a price average accumulated of $150.70 by quintal, little more than $6 above the major registered daily price.

The president of Icafé was emphatic in indicating that the quotation above the $140 has given the sector a breath, since five years ago, a quintal was sold as low as $60.

In Costa Rica there are 55,000 producers and 200,000 people that are benefited from this activity.

Monumental work beautifies duty-free zone in Alajuela

Taken from: www.nacion.com

In the main entrance to the duty-free zone of El Coyol of Alajuela a monumental sculpture receives the visitors and invites them to think on the balance that should exist among human beings, technology and natural wealth.

The artwork, “Toward the future in harmony with nature” is a sculpture carried out by Costa Rican artist Édgar Zúñiga and designed especially for that space.

With 13 meters in height and 12 meters wide, the piece is a sculptural assembly comprising a base of concrete in which three iron columns raise themselves.

"The work is located in a place that promotes technological development. That is why it encloses a message on the need that technology must respect nature if we plan to benefits for humanity", explained Zúñiga, who had already placed a three-piece sculpture in the interior gardens of the industrial complex. As it was commented by the artist, the concept behind its work is supported in an integral vision of life and the universe.

The monument expresses in a poetic and abstract manner the complex plot of life and society. The base of the assembly is a concrete ramp shaped with organic forms that take you back to the land, the trees or the caves.

The gray cement one is sprinkled with some reddish tones that reinforce the earthly link. Near an end to the ramp there is located a concrete sphere of and a stainless steel bucket intertwined among itself.The ramp, which begins in the ground, displaces itself in ascending direction toward the infinite as a metaphor of the connection between the cosmos and the planet that we inhabit.

On the concrete platform rest three iron columns which have different heights and are united among themselves by small blocks that give the sensation that they float in the air.

INBio manages to reproduce Costa Rican frogs in danger of extinction

Taken from: www.nacion.com

Scientists of the National Institute of Biodiversity (INBio) managed to reproduce in its installations an arboreal

frog species that is on the verge of extinction in the country. This achievement, which intends to save to this species of its disappearance, is a project that has been in the works for a while now.

The amphibian in question is Agalychnis annae, a native species of Costa Rica that is known for its black eyes with orange and lemon green skin –with thin blue stripes in the sides of its womb–.

This is a nocturnal frog that can measure up to eight centimeters and feeds off insects and leaves.

Some 20 years ago, these frogs were very common in all the Central Valley and the mountain range of Tilarán and that of Talamanca. Nevertheless, studies showed that since 1990 the population of this species has been reduced by 50%, and they survive barely in coffee plantations and gardens of San José.

In INBio, located in Santo Domingo de Heredia, already they have reproduced 100 tadpoles and 28 young frogs. The last amphibians are protected in a reservoir prepared by the INBio so that they may free the specimens.

The first thing that the INBio caused was to create a small artificial humid tropical forest.

This species is characterized for placing its eggs under the tip of large leaves. These eggs are stored in a gelatinous mass with some 100 eggs. At the moment of the spawning, the scientists extracted the leaves with the eggs that were shown to the general public and they transferred them to a laboratory.

During a week, the small eggs began transform themselves into tadpoles and little by little these began to fall into the water, 60 days later the tadpoles become into small frogs.

The step of tadpoles to small frogs was followed closely by the specialists, who fed the small animals with live insects, crushed leaves, humid trunks, dog food, fish and turtle food. They changed the water every two days.

The experts say that they will continue working in the reproduction of this species and will evaluate the possibility of carrying out a cultivation of other amphibian species in danger of extinction.