Hacienda Matapalo’s ( www.haciendamatapalo.com ) program to aid local environmental projects has taken a big step forward with the decision to aid the Matapalo Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Project by helping fund the work of the Association of Volunteers for Service in Protected Areas in Costa Rica. (ASVO) The ASVO is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization [...]
The latest and best efforts at cultural preservation, environmental conservation, and community-building through tourism are recognized in Travel + Leisure’s 2009 Global Vision Awards. CEO and Founder Bruce Poon Tip of Gap Adventures, the world’s leading small group adventure tour operator, was one of 17 organisations recognised for efforts to promote voluntourism. Through the company’s [...]
Sandpoint Middle School eighth-grade student Devan Fitzpatrick has a pretty good idea what profession she wants to pursue when she is older. But just to be sure, she thought she should investigate it a little further, so she signed up for a trip to Costa Rica to work with endangered leatherback turtles. “I want to [...]
When my first volunteer shift begins, at 8 p.m. on a balmy Sunday night, the beach at Gandoca, Costa Rica, is eerily dark. I clutch my Wal-Mart flashlight closer. Then our patrol leader, a conservation biologist, motions to our group of newbie volunteers and says, “Turn your flashlights off. The light bothers the turtles.” Amid [...]
(Tribune Media Services) — The beach is pitch black, except for the light from the stars dancing across the sky. The ocean waves pound. And right in front of us, a huge (more than 300 pounds and three feet long) green sea turtle methodically drops her eggs into a nest she’s dug deep in the [...]
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