TRASHIN’ FASHION Nearly 80 percent of the garbage in Costa Rica’s dumps could be recycled, if there were recycling centers throughout the country. To draw attention to the problem some innovative women in Tamarindo went to the local landfill and collected materials for haute couture designer wear. Among their finds for bikinis and ball gowns [...]

I have created a new online social network, which has kept me totally occupied for the past three weeks. Hence, I have not catered to my website. I’m long overdue for a posting. The new network is called EcoPaparazzi. I originally created it to bring environmental media makers together to report on ecological concerns around [...]

My toilet leaks and the landlord keeps making excuses for not sending a plumber to fix it. I’m getting angry. It’s been five weeks. So this morning I took action. I did what anyone in my situation would do: I got online.Forty minutes later and my head is spinning. I feel like a tsunami has [...]

 I just discovered a film made by a husband and wife team called The Singing Revolution and wanted to pass along knowledge about it. Go to the website and read about the inspiring story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom and helped topple an empire along the way through song. Most people don’t think [...]

I leave with Nancy early in the morning to spend a week at Campanario in the Osa Peninsula. Another group is coming to the field station, so we’ll be there too. I’ve been in San Jose for three weeks going on a lifetime sentence, and I’m so ready to be back home, in the rainforest [...]

  This is a common scene along the beaches of Lake Nicaragua in Ometepe. Islanders use the lake water for washing clothes, bathing bodies, swimming, fishing and general all-around daily usage. It is the water of life for them and their lives center around the lake. When I first saw this scene of clothes drying [...]

  The buses that have taken me to Panama and Nicaragua are luxurious. There is a toilet on the bus, which comes in real handy after having a few cups of coffee before boarding in the wee hours before dawn. Every bus I’ve taken so far to distance areas departs at 6 a.m., which means [...]

 I leave for Campanario the day after tomorrow, after having been in San Jose for about 10 days. I’m ready to be reunited with the folks I have come to care about at the field station and the rainforest critters in my wild community. I miss my rituals with dawn and dusk, the call of [...]

 It’s about a three hour hike from Campanario to where this Costa Rica flag is at Corcovado National Park. By the time I got there I was good and ready to take a break from lugging my heavy camera and tripod through the hot, steamy jungle. I’m getting some great footage, but there’s definitely a [...]

  The issue of water rights is something that I keep witnessing over and over wherever I travel. I observed and experienced these concerns in the U.S. Southwest and southern California when I travelled across the U.S. with Red last year, and I experienced and witnessed them in Mexico. Now I am seeing the problems up [...]