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The Cutting Edge
Volume XV, Number 2, April 2008
News and Notes |
Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature |
Season's Pick
MORE DARWIN. As we wrote this, INB curators Alexánder Rodríguez and
Daniel Solano were in the field, together with botanical database-entry expert and
all-round assistant Frank González, collector Daniel Santamaría,
Manual co-PI Nelson Zamora, and others (including entomologists, herpetologists, and
a geographer), on the latest Darwin Initiative venture [see
The Cutting
Edge 13(3): 2, Jul. 2006]. This most recent expedition, launched on 19 February, sought
to inventory Cerros Amuo, Seno, and Kuákua, on the Pacific slope of the
Cordillera de Talamanca, using Cerro Mosca-La Lucha and Tres Colinas as base camps. A total
of 17 points were sampled. At the beginning of the Darwin Initiative, the plan was to put
all effort into collecting on the wetter and more isolated and densely forested Caribbean
slope, but economic restrictions on this last Costa Rican foray for the project made a
Pacific endeavor the only one feasible.
TOURISM: THE DARK SIDE. Former INBio curator and Costa Rican congressman Quírico
Jiménez continues to stick his neck out (endangering his personal safety) by writing
prolifically on the rampant (and often irresponsible or even illegal) development of coastal
areas of Costa Rica, mainly funded by foreign interests. For a recent example of his work,
see:
http://www.informatico.com
At the same time, an executive decree recently signed by Costa Rican President (and Nobel
laureate) Óscar Arias restricts public access to information about ongoing
investigations into such matters by their own environmental agency (Tribunal Ambiental);
see:
http://www.aldia.co.cr/ad_ee/2008/febrero/22/nacionales1434636.html
VISITING BOTANISTS IN COSTA RICA. Katya Romolereux (QCA) was in the country from
11–16 February, collecting Lachemilla (Rosaceae) and determining specimens at
CR and INB. Michael Sundue and Alejandra Vasco, doctoral students at NY, put
in some time at the same institutions studying and identifying fern specimens, pursuant to
an OTS pteridophyte course coordinated by Robbin Moran (NY).
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