News stories by Diego Arguedas Ortiz, page 5

PUNTARENAS, Costa Rica, Jul 02 (IPS) - Biologist Juan Sánchez drives the leader of two off-road vehicles along a dirt road in southeastern Costa Rica. Officials and experts are on their way to inspect a homestead whose owner has destroyed part of a mangrove swamp.

SAN JOSE, May 21 (IPS) - Eight months after it was introduced in the Costa Rican legislature, a bill to create a framework law on climate change is faltering after undergoing modifications that have run into criticism from environmentalists and experts – a situation made even more complex by the recent change of government.

CAHUITA NATIONAL PARK, Costa Rica, Apr 14 (IPS) - The critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle has few sanctuaries left in the world, and this is one of them. But in 2012 only 53 nests were counted on the beaches of this national park in Costa Rica. And there is an enemy that conservation efforts can't fight: the beaches themselves are shrinking.

PITAL, Costa Rica, Apr 02 (IPS) - Olga Vargas, a breast cancer survivor, is back in the countryside, working in a forestry programme in the north of Costa Rica aimed at empowering women while at the same time mitigating the effects of climate change.

ALVARADO, Costa Rica, Mar 04 (IPS) - José Alberto Chacón traverses the winding path across his small farm on the slopes of the Irazú volcano, in Costa Rica, which meanders because he has designed it to prevent rain from washing away nutrients from the soil.

SAN JOSÉ, Feb 05 (IPS) - Meeting Costa Rica's self-imposed goal of being the first country in the world to achieve carbon neutrality by 2021 will depend on the priority given this aim by the winner of the second round of the presidential elections in April.