Credit: Seidi Arleny Chavarría
The beautiful community of Dos Brazos de Río is a small town surrounded by the forests of the Corcovado National Park and the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve. It is a place where environmental awareness and sustainable development grow more and more. To know more about the history of this town you have to go visit it. Alongside a local person, you will discover that it is a hidden jewel of the Osa Peninsula. Neither an image nor a thousand words can describe the beauties of this little paradise. We can anticipate that in Dos Brazos del Río Tigre there is a group of people dedicated to the monitoring of fauna, in order to know in detail the biodiversity that this site offers and to complement the tourism efforts.
Recently the MonitoreOsa program of the ASCONA ONG, and with the support of the scientist Hilary Brumberg of the Healthy Rivers Program, organized a workshop about the monitoring of river shrimp and the effect of poison on the ecosystem. The interest to know about the natural history of these animals was born by the same neighbors, who have been observing the decline of shrimp populations in their rivers, possibly as a result of the bad practices used by some people to extract the shrimp. What surprised the group the most was the magnitude of the effect of the poison. It does not only kill the shrimp, but also all life that houses a river - insects, crabs, fish, it even affects the otters and other animals, which feed on poisoned animals.
Finally, it affects people who consume shrimp from this type of extraction. It is a devastating practice to everyone’s health. The workshop ended with a tour of the river in search of shrimp. We were able to register the presence of five different species. We hope this is the first of many shrimp monitoring tours that will help the species survive.
Por ~ by Elena Vargas Fonseca
CONTACT: MonitoreOsa corcovadoeltigre@gmail.com
