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Into the Deep Blue: Costa Rica Thermal Dome Expedition Launches

In three days, Mission Blue is heading out to the Costa Rica Thermal Dome Hope Spot with our strategic partners at MarViva! They are a fantastic regional, non-governmental organization focusing on the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal resources, including the expansion of marine protected areas. In the Costa Rica Thermal Dome, MarViva and Mission Blue share the goal of raising awareness among decision makers and natural resource users about the ecological importance of the Dome, as well as the ecological connection between coastal environments in the Central American region and the high seas.
Here are the facts…
What is the Costa Rica Thermal Dome?
The Costa Rica Thermal Dome is an open-ocean phenomenon that forms every spring between 150 and 300 miles off the western coast of Costa Rica.…

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Join Sylvia Earle 1,000 ft deep on World Oceans Day

What’s it like to be with Sylvia Earle at the bottom of the sea? Find out in Beyond Blue, a new short film created by Kip Evans, Mission Blue’s director of expeditions and photography. National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle, called a Living Legend by the Library of Congress, first Hero for the Planet by Time Magazine and 2014 Woman of the Year by Glamour, spoke with Evans in this exclusive interview 1,000 feet below the waves at Cocos Island, Costa Rica – a Mission Blue Hope Spot – in Undersea Hunter’s DeepSee submersible during Mission Blue’s recent expedition to the island in partnership with Fusion. Watch it here:

Mission Blue: Beyond Blue from Kip Evans on Vimeo.…

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Sharks and Costa Rica

By Dr. Erick Ross Salazar of the MarViva Foundation (a Mission Blue partner)

Sharks are an essential part of the oceans. Their presence is an indicator of the good health of an ecosystem; their absence is representative of an overfished and out of balance marine environment. Even though sharks have been traditionally vilified in movies and general media, the public is nowadays more aware of their value to sustain life in the oceans and is more proactive in asking governments for their protection.
Costa Rica has recently promoted several initiatives oriented towards managing sharks responsibly. In 2013, the government passed a decree banning shark finning and emphasizing existing restrictions. Also in 2013, the government joined efforts with Brazil and Honduras and spearheaded the advocacy for the inclusion of hammerhead sharks in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).…

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Protect Costa Rica’s Hammerhead Sharks from Poachers

By Shari Sant Plummer with contributions by Courtney Mattison (Originally published on National Geographic Ocean Views)

Three hundred forty two miles west of mainland Costa Rica lies an oceanic island so spectacular Jacques Cousteau called it the “most beautiful island in the world.” Cascading waterfalls cut through lush foliage, the symphony of a thousand seabirds echoes in your ears, and the surrounding deep waters host a diversity of wildlife found almost nowhere else on the planet. Isla del Coco’s extreme wild beauty appears Jurassic – and was in fact used in the movie of the same name. It seems as though you’ve gone back in time, to a time before humans.

Our ship, the Argo, was greeted by spinner dolphins who leapt and twirled at her bow as we entered the boundaries of Cocos Island Marine Park.…

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Central American Dome – Playa Grande, Costa Rica Expedition

In January 2014, MarViva and Mission Blue launched a film expedition with Dr. Sylvia Earle to highlight our Central American Dome Hope Spot.  Partners supporting the expedition were LightHawk, The Baum Foundation, Bula Bula and National Geographic. The ecological and commercial value of the Dome’s resources were documented to raise awareness and support for the protection of its species and habitats. The film below, produced by Mission Blue and MarViva, takes viewers on a journey to learn about the Central American Dome (CAD) and why sustainable management of this High Seas Hope Spot is so important for the region:

In 2013, Dr. Sylvia Earle and Mission Blue declared The Central American Dome a “Hope Spot,” designating it as a special area critical to the health of the ocean.…

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Finding the Leatherbacks

This weekend our expedition team, including Dr. Sylvia Earle, Dr. Erick Ross, Dr. George Schillinger and Kip Evans visited the turtles at the Leatherback Trust hatchery in Costa Rica.
The hatchery serves to give leatherbacks a better chance at overall survival. It begins by protecting the iconic creature’s eggs from predators, after which on-site biologists monitor the nests, checking nest temperatures which determine the sex of the turtles. When the turtles have matured, they are released to begin their migration offshore to the Central American Dome. 
Successful protection of 99% of the nests started in 1993 and the hatchery started to operate in 1998-99. Although at present, population numbers are decreasing, we can expect to see numbers of leatherbacks increasing in the next few years.…

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Shark Finning Ban Success in Costa Rica

By Richard Branson
We’re in Costa Rica today with very exciting news from the OceanElders‘ efforts to stop shark finning.
I saw the film Sharkwater a few years ago and it shook me to the core. Here we were decimating 1.5 million sharks per week – all for a bowl of soup. Like anyone who has seen the film, I was determined to do anything I could to see if I could help.
Sharkwater was largely based around the slaughter of sharks off Costa Rica, where you also have the beautiful Coco Islands. It was sickening to see the tens of thousands of shark fins drying out on the roofs and to see live sharks being thrown back into the water to die after their fins were cut off.…

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