A few days ago, Costa Rica received from the Walder Foundation in Chicago, the Center for Genomics for Biodiversity (CBG) of the University of Guelph, Canada (CBG), and a private donor of Canada, a total of $1 million to strengthen its biodiversity inventory.
This is a project to identify the biodiversity of Costa Rica: “BioAlfa”, declared of national interest in 2019, which aims to strengthen scientific development in environmental matters, as well as publicize and identify the wild biodiversity of Costa Rica.
The studies corresponding to all the insects collected in a year and the generation of bar codes, from the “BioAlfa” project, will be under the investment. It is worth noting that through traps, insects are captured, experts can subsequently access thousands of samples of them completely frozen, for this procedure economic resources are needed to help analysis and identification.
The cost of the laboratory process is $1 per insect and is carried out at the CBG of the University of Guelph, Canada. Finally, it is possible to inventory by means of bar codes, the multicellular wild biodiversity of Costa Rica, whether in wild, agricultural or urban areas.
Insects are part of great investments
An example is the edible insect industries, which have a fundamental role in helping to feed the one billion more people who will live on the planet by the year 2030, experts say, and therefore, that can combat catastrophic climate change.
It is worth mentioning that at the end of 2020, the British government invested £10 million in Entocycle, a company that is building the first industrial-scale insect farm in the UK.
In 2003, the United Nations (UN) highlighted the benefits of edible insects. Those who make up the organization reported that around 2 billion people in 130 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, already include insects in their diet.
Specialists in the area and also a Costa Rican, such as Alejandro Ortega, assure that the option to manage the food problem would be the industrialization of edible insects.
Alejandro Ortega, is a Marketer, former fellow of the United States Department of State, with a focus on business communication and entrepreneurship and is the founder of Costa Rica Insect Company (Cric).
For the subject specialist, “insects will offer a very promising alternative, they (insects) can be cultivated using fewer resources such as land, water, energy, among others. They can provide more protein and contribute less to climate change and lower levels of pollutants like ammonia.” Cric continues to operate in Costa Rica and Ortega is in the Netherlands, with another company called Sibo.
First green thematic investment fund in Costa Rica
Costa Rica begins this 2022, with the first thematic investment fund of Costa Rica, which has the amount of $15 million, through BN Valores (stock market of Banco Nacional.
The green development fund is called BN I and has the objective of developing a fully sustainable data center; the center will occupy land belonging to Banco Nacional, through a lease with purchase option. The contract has a term of 15 years, and the purchase option can be exercised at any time during that term.
In this sense, offers were received that doubled the estimated value of 15 thousand participations (15 million deposits) and reached a total of $33 million. As well as these funds, in 2021 numerous were opened, many oriented towards biodiversity, in curbing the Climate Change crisis and the desire to invest in totally sustainable crop initiatives, are they prepared for this 2022?
