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 →