Adrian Arguijo Valdez is an artisanal fisherman. His weathered hands are a testament to countless years of direct exposure to sun and wind on the Golfo de Nicoya, off Costa Rica's north-central Pacific coast. Threads dance off the edges of his loose clothing, but there is still great strength in his presence. “I used to be a fisherman but times have changed,” he says.
According to a joint report from WHO, UNICEF and Costa Rican health and water authorities, an estimated 50 percent of the water destined for Costa Rican homes and businesses is wasted because of poor infrastructure, leaks, overflowing tanks and poor water management.
Mario Blanco, director of the Lankester Botanical Garden at the University of Costa Rica, told The Tico Times it was hard to gauge the size of the black market for orchids but that snatching the flowers was a common practice.
PARIS – The U.N.'s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said Friday that three pesticides, including the popular weedkiller Roundup, were "probably" carcinogenic and two others, which have already been outlawed or restricted, were "possibly" so.
Costa Rica imports 1 million tires and produces another 281,000 annually, according to the Health Ministry’s Human Environment Protection Administration.
Environmentalists and administration officials are at loggerheads over what to do with more than 1,200 kilograms of shark fins — the equivalent of about 2,000 hammerhead sharks — caught as bycatch. The disagreement extends to regulations published in February that environmentalists contend threaten endangered shark populations.
