Tag archives for Panama
Posted by 
Things are changing for a motley crew of pint-sized slowpokes on a previously undisturbed island ten miles off the coast of Panama. But scientists are utilizing an “environmental air force” to slow the tide.
Posted by 
Hoping for billfish, the team catches a sailfish, but in this situation, anglers can’t be choosers. Get the play-by-play.
Before you can attach a Crittercam camera to a marlin, you’ve got to catch the fish. Researcher Sam Friedrichs shows how its done.
The Crittercam expedition to Panama kicked off with blue marlin release as we made our way to Tropic Star Lodge.
Follow researchers to Panama where they’ll use Crittercam to help unlock the secret lives of marlin before it’s too late.
Posted by 
Back on the Ethereal our lunch and dinner conversations revolve around the importance of marine systems to keep the planet functioning and humans breathing. How do we change perception of the ocean wildlife as resource made for human consumption, to the realization that life in the ocean is all part of a complex system, sequestering…
It’s almost impossible to plan an trip like this. Factors of weather, mechanics, and physical logistics are the enemy of scheduling. Today we are about two hours behind on scuba diving, and plans for a sub interview with Hector Guzman from STRI are scrapped due to rough seas, allowing me some unscheduled time to write.…
Posted by Faced with sea level rising, one indigenous community weighs a plan to mitigate climate change. In northeast Panama’s lush tropical forests, a sovereign indigenous comarca is raising the same question that delegates at the Cancún climate conference are raising about a plan for avoided deforestation: how is REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) supposed…
Like other nations with tropical forests, Panama is preparing for the chance that the United Nations will include the program REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”) in a UN-sanctioned carbon market. Such a market would ultimately have to conform to any agreement approved at Cancún — a gathering of the United Nations Framework…
In Panama, where many land-tenure issues have gone unresolved for a long time, the nation’s indigenous communities are closely watching the climate-mitigation plan REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”). According to most interpretations of the documents involved, REDD’s role in a carbon market in Panama would undermine sovereignty, mostly by providing incentives for…
In the debate over the climate-plan REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”), the wealthy players have no shortage of chips on the poker table. Partly to appeal to private investors and partly to establish a cheaper way to reduce their carbon footprint, developed nations want any Cancún agreement to embed REDD in a…
According to a review of plans filed by more than 20 countries for REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”), at least seven nations besides Panama — from Ghana to Liberia — also blame “swidden” farming for damaging forests. Threatening ancestral fire regimes with references to “slashing, burning” and “traditional agriculture,” Panama’s plan could…
The proponents of the climate plan REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”) face obstacles in seeking consent from traditional indigenous communities, which almost invariably inhabit the forests targeted by the program. But if genuine consent is to happen, critics say, advocates of a forest-conservation project must not be allowed to coerce or bribe…
The eyes of many indigenous communities are on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancún, particularly on an emerging definition of a climate plan called REDD (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”). Despite more than two years of lobbying by forest inhabitants and their advocates around the world, the UNFCCC’s…
Imaging the Earth by Kite
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 24, 2010 Google Earth Blog founder and editor Frank Taylor packed some high-tech toys for his five-year round-the-world sailing trip aboard the ship Tahina. Among them: A camera suspended beneath a kite for taking high-definition aerial photographs. While in the San Blas archipelago off Panama’s Caribbean coast in March, Taylor flew the kite above tiny BBQ Island—so-named…
Tahina Prepares for Panama Transit
Posted by Ford Cochran on March 22, 2010 We’ve been following the progress of Frank Taylor—founder and editor of the Google Earth Blog—and his wife Karen during their five-year round-the-world journey in the 50-foot catamaran Tahina. Since November, the couple has sailed the Atlantic from their starting point in North Carolina along the Caribbean’s Leeward and Windward island chains and west across South…
Maize was domesticated from its wild grass ancestor more than 8,700 years ago, according to biological evidence uncovered by researchers in Mexico’s Central Balsas River Valley. This is the earliest dated evidence — by 1,200 years — for the presence and use of domesticated maize. The researchers, led by Anthony Ranere of Temple University and…
