Flooding in Straiton, Scotland, in December. Scientists say it will increase in future. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

We have precedent, sufficiently clear by now, to figure out we need to take action:

As noted over here, tomorrow we will begin publishing in these pages the type of news and reflections that had been the mainstay of Raxa Collective’s site on WordPress. We will be adding more features here than had been present there, and will trim out some features that were there but that seemed not to go anywhere, so to speak.

La Paz Group’s website has been under renovation recently as well, and will have a fresh appearance soon. These migrations and renovations are in anticipation of completing at the end of this month the tasks we started in 2010-2011 with Raxa Collective; and in anticipation of several exciting new activities that La Paz Group is just starting to work on. Exciting stuff. Stay tuned.

The exact date of La Paz Group’s founding precedes the date on which the company was formally incorporated; it is fair to say that moving to Costa Rica was the inception. At about this time of year in 1996 our family moved to Costa Rica so that I could begin field work on the initiative I had already accepted responsibility for starting in 1995.

It was an initiative perfectly suited for me, just completing my doctoral dissertation at the same time that Costa Rica’s President, Jose Maria Figueres, was two years into his quest to make Costa Rica a model of sustainable development. My dissertation research provided theoretical foundation for the initiative, and motivation for me to “test it” in the marketplace. I was extremely fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.

Two decades later, the concept of entrepreneurial conservation, which was at the heart of the sustainable development initiative in Costa Rica’s tourism sector starting in the mid-1990s, is thriving. La Paz Group is, as well, as we will begin illustrating on these pages starting today.

Officers corralled a cow that had escaped a slaughterhouse in Jamaica, Queens, on Thursday. Credit, New York Police Department 103rd Precinct

We are not clear on the meaning of the name given to this cow, but we are sure the story is a sign from the forces of vegetarianism. Anyway, go Freddie, go! As if you needed more reasons, we propose a quick read to get you thinking about giving up meat, from an unexpected angle:

A cow that was captured by the police after escaping a New York City slaughterhouse has been taken in by an animal sanctuary and named for the rock legend Freddie Mercury. Continue reading →

All five planets will arrange on an arc across the sky. Mercury will appear the closest to the horizon, followed by Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. The stars Antares and Spica will make cameos as well, twinkling between Saturn and Mars, and Mars and Jupiter, respectively. Credit Sky & Telescope

For the next six weeks, the sky is calling:

Prepare for a Celestial Spectacle as Five Planets Align

Five planets will parade across the dawn sky early Wednesday in a rare celestial spectacle set to repeat every morning until late next month. Continue reading →

The Raxa Collective blog caught the attention of colleagues in Thailand a few years ago, and we have been exchanging visits, and ideas, with those colleagues ever since. And now we have taken it from informal mutual admiration to formal collaboration. We have just started a strategic alliance with Asian Oasis, a pioneering sustainable tourism/hospitality company in Thailand.

Raxa Collective will now collaborate with Asian Oasis on the global promotion of their properties, which Amie and I have been getting to know with site visits over the last two years. We will begin introducing those properties on this blog, and look forward to your response.

One of their lodges in Northern Thailand, Lanjia Lodge, was recognized during 2015 as the Best in Community Engagement & Development in Asia by Wild Asia.

And that was last year, the Year of the Wooden Sheep according to local astrological tradition (search on that term for some interesting discoveries). The Year of the Red Fire Monkey (again, search it: you will find results describing it as the year of strength and determination; setting goals and achieving them; and business flourishing)  begins February 8th, 2016 and ends on January 27, 2017. We look forward to earning the Monkey’s goodwill through our good works.

South America, the EU and south E-east Asia are among the places from which the UK sources its food Photograph: Andre Penner/AP

We know local food is better for many reasons. We tend not to think about the negative impacts on those places where food is sourced from as a reason to source more locally. Thanks to the Guardian for this article:

More than half of the UK’s food and feed now comes from overseas, which is burdening poorer countries with the related environmental impact, a new study says.

More than two-thirds of the land needed to produce the UK’s food and feed is based abroad, researchers said, meaning 64% of the related greenhouse gases are emitted on foreign soil.

Since 1986, the size of this land has grown by 23% to match increasing demand, with associated CO2 emissions rising by 15%, the research published in the Journal  of the Royal Society Interface states. Continue reading →

Black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes). Photo © Kimberly Fraser/USFWS

The first half of this article is a bit gruesome, due to the particulars of how this species arrived at the brink of extinction. The second half is the “bright horizon” side of the story, and thanks to The Nature Conservancy for sharing it (among all their other good works):

…Until 2013 willing landowners were hard to find. But that year the Fish and Wildlife Service implemented a “Safe Harbor” program by which the agency promises not to prosecute participants for accidental take of ferrets if they agree to protect prairie dogs and allow ferret monitoring and plague management. What’s more, in some states the Natural Resources Conservation Service pays them for hosting ferrets. Without Safe Harbor the Endangered Species Act tends not to work on private land; and without private land ferret recovery can’t happen. Continue reading →

A herd of elephants run from bee sounds in Samburu national park in Kenya. Photograph: Lucy King/AP

This article from today’s Guardian‘s Environment section touches on a trifecta of our core values:

A community near the famed Serengeti national park in Tanzania is enlisting the help of bees to reduce escalating tensions with elephants that enrage locals by trampling upon their crops.

A fence made of beehives is being constructed around a one-acre farm close to the Ngorongoro conservation area as part of the pilot project to see if the buzzing bees will deter elephants that stroll on to cropland.

Continue reading →

Nils Warnock holding a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper/ Photo: Ake Lindstrom

Thanks to the current issue of Audubon Magazine for bringing to our attention the remarkable work of scientists studying the even more remarkable bird journeys that make up one of North America’s many migration paths:

A decade ago, a group of biologists made an astounding discovery: By tracking Bar-tailed Godwits, they found that the one-pound shorebirds—that have bills longer than their heads—were flying non-stop for up to 7,000 miles over the Pacific Ocean, from their wintering grounds in New Zealand to their breeding grounds in Alaska. Continue reading →

In my last post I mentioned rainforest in the context of Costa Rica and in this post I cross over to India to mention another rainforest. Rainforest, the conservation initiative. Rainforest, the community initiative. We are collaborating with the owner of Rainforest, the resort. It is in the same location where the photo above is taken.

These waterfalls have all kinds of remarkable superlatives attached to them. For me the best is “the Niagara Falls of India,”  but not so much because that sounds funny (which it does, to me). Athirapally is their formal name, and that is funny because as with many names in India there is more than one official spelling. You are likely to see road signs spelling the name Athirapilly on your drive approaching the falls. Continue reading →

It’s a new day, a new year, and all that. We were thinking (as usual) in the last days of 2015 about the highest best use of our collective talents, where to apply them to have the maximum best impact in 2016. In case you missed the ongoing series of posts by our colleague Phil Karp, see the most recent post first, and then go back and read the rest of them. He is applying his experience from a long professional career in development to do something he cares deeply about, applied to one very specific ecological challenge. And we are particularly intrigued by the approach, which we call entrepreneurial conservation, that he has taken.

We also appreciate Mr. Sala’s example, and the fact that a major media publication continuously provides examples like this, and hope to live up to that standard this year (including sharing even more posts linking to stories like this):

In 2007, Enric Sala, a marine ecologist, quit his job in academia, saying he was “tired of writing the obituary of ocean life.” Only 1 percent of the ocean is currently protected, marine scientists say, and the rest is being disrupted by overfishing, pollution, climate change and species extinctions. Dr. Sala said he felt the need to take action. Continue reading →

A blog that began with two university students in far-off places is now going into its fifth calendar year. We are committed to its ongoing relevance, and notice that we were all rather quiet in recent weeks, with sparse postings as time permitted, but one thing that has been very consistent is our “bird of the day” posting. We are heartened just now reading by what may be the last guest comment of the year from one of the properties we care for, which shows that our effort with birds is bearing fruit:

…best thing for us was the dedication this resort places on bird watching…a dedicated birding guide…patient , funny, and very knowledgeable about the birds one would expect on the premises. We learned so much from him and it carried over as we continued with our CR trip…

As important as birds are, we head into a new year thinking about all the important topics we still need to give attention to. For example, there is much to be said on changing approaches to leadership of organizations we respect; from the upcoming issue of a magazine we have relied on for new ideas and deep reporting, here is some new click bait:

To the right of the stage was written a series of words that described Ford’s hoped-for future: Justice, Opportunity, Voice, Dignity, Creativity, Change, Visionaries. Walker himself was beloved for his democratic exuberance, manifested both in his vivacious clothing (his jaunty ties, his pocket squares, his pig cufflinks) and in his untiring enthusiasm.

“There is a lot going on at the Ford Foundation,” he declared. “So fasten your seat belts!”

If that is your last read of 2015, you will not regret it. We will be back in the new year, in full force with voices that have gone quiet recently to complete this year’s work, to continue linking you to the best examples we can find about community, conservation and collaboration. For now, over and out.