For those who aren’t aware of this looming challenge, I include a few (not intended comprehensive, just things I have run across in the last year) links below regarding the planned “Canal Seco.” This is an overland cargo route that would run from Limon to Cuajiniquil. Something to keep an eye on.
Claims that there will be no impact on protected areas
ACG researcher Amanda Melin has been named a Canada Research Chair in Primate Genomics and Dietary Ecology, one of 56 such chairs in Canada.
Much of the work sponsored by the chair will be carried out in Sector Santa Rosa of the ACG, where Dr. Melin is a long time researcher and co-director of the long-running white-faced capuchin research project. Dr. Melin’s work in Santa Rosa has focused on sensory ecology, including the consequences of primate color vision syndromes for foraging behavior.
Dr. Linda Fedigan at the Investiture Ceremony for the Order of Canada, 14 February 2017
Dr. Fedigan’s research into the white-faced capuchin monkey (Cebus capucinus) is one of the ACG’s longest running and most productive field research projects, and she has supervised dozens of students who have conducted their research in and around Santa Rosa. Her citation reads:
Linda Marie Fedigan has made enduring contributions to the study of primates, some of our closest evolutionary relatives. Canada Research Chair in Primatology and Bioanthropology at the University of Calgary, she established a world-class research station in Costa Rica’s Àrea de Conservación Guanacaste. Known for her field work, she has conducted groundbreaking long-term studies of the life history and reproductive patterns of female monkeys, which have increased our understanding of how primates adapt to their environments. An exemplary mentor, she is also known for her academic study of the role of women in science.
According to IACG’s informants, the ACG seems to have escaped Hurricane Otto relatively unscathed. Roger Blanco writes:
There really wasn’t any impact on ACG infrastructure, with the exception of some trees fallen across different roads and trails. We have been cleaning those up the last few days. Our major wok has been to support the local emergency committees with ACG staff and drivers helping to move people around, distribute water and food, help make inspections and generally reach out to the most affected communities.
Those of you plugged in to the ACG on social media will have seen many great examples of this work over the last few days as the ACG staff (as well as staff from throughout SINAC) have played a major role in the national response to this crisis.
As you may be aware, tropical storm Otto is expected to make landfall in Costa Rica, potentially as a hurricane. The projected trajectory is along the Costa Rica Nicaraguan border. At the very least ACG can expect heavy rain over the next several days so be aware of potentially bad road conditions and river crossings becoming impassable. Maria Marta has pulled some information together in the document linked below.
The Tico Times has a profile of ACG researcher Arturo Sánchez-Azofeifa and his Santa Rosa based TDF monitoring projects 
IACG sent around this email on behalf of the Ecotourism program. We are posting it here as well to try to reach as many people as possible. If you have research activities near the existing trails, this could affect you, so please take the time to respond to this request.
(If you’d like to be included on the low-frequency IACG listserv in the future, sign up at the link.)
The Eco-tourism Program in ACG is interested in expanding a trail system near the Casona to showcase important aspects of the forest and ongoing research occurring nearby.
However, as they plan out the trail location they want to ensure that (1) any areas of long-term research or monitoring are avoided so as not to impact the study and (2) any relevant research in the area is described to the public.
To facilitate this process please get in touch with Johan Martínez of the ecotourism program at ecoturismo@acguanacaste.ac.cr.
1. GPS coordinates of study locations in the Casona area (particularly within the square indicated in the attached image). This will help the Eco-tourism office avoid research plots as they begin planning
and
2. A short summary or publications that you think Eco-tourism could showcase or describe to visitors.
Even if you don’t have research plots in the area, now would be an opportunistic time to send updated GPS coordinates of your ACG study areas, a short description and any publications resulting from all your awesome work to Roger Blanco (if you have not done so yet). This will help keep Roger’s database up-to-date.
At the link find the report: Construcción de Funciones Alométricas para Cos ta Rica en el Contexto del Proyecto de Protección Ambiental a través de la Protección d e los Bosques de Centro América (Informe final) by Dr. William Fonseca
The overall objective was to evaluate the capacity for climate change mitigation by forest ecosystems, and to develop the technical capacity that would allow the country to more easily participate in carbon markets, contributing to the REDD+ strategy of Costa Rica and to the goal of carbon neutrality.
I missed this until now, but this is probably relevant to many ACG researchers. The CIA (Center for Agronomic Research) of the University of Costa Rica released a new soil map in 2013 and have updated the map in 2016. The map (shape files) and some supporting information are available at the link. Here’s a news release from UCR regarding the update.
Furthermore, they have created a mobile app that provides access to the data. The app is available at Google play or the Apple App store. 
Those of you who are familiar with the InvestigadoresACG project know that one of our long-term goals is to create a repository of ACG knowledge that benefits all of our user communities. We decided to start with a set of historical aerial photos of the ACG from different time periods (you may have seen them in the ACG library, if you knew where to look) that have never been digitized. I thought it would be a good time to share a few project images. We hope to make high resolution geo-tagged version of these images available on the ACG website soon. Stay tuned!
