The four blocks surrounding the historic center of San José are lined with contrasts.

Water-damaged, 19th century architectural relics sit across from brightly-colored, concrete nuisances near the pedestrian intersection of Avenida Central and Calle Central. A relaxing fountain, where the elderly read newspapers under the shade of sagging tree limbs, sits a half-block from light posts with chipped paint and missing lamps.

Since every block has a different mood, there's a disjointed feeling emitted by the contrasting styles of the buildings.

The Heritage Center, part of the Culture Ministry, is trying to promote the preservation and restoration of historic buildings and districts. But with laws that tend to threaten punishment, instead of offering assistance, they have found themselves relegated to focusing on a few isolated problems every year.

This year, the center has a list of six buildings it will restore in San José, with a price tag of $1.4 million, said Sandra Quirós, the director of the Center. One of those is La Alhambra, located a half-block south of the central intersection and named after the famous 14th Century palace in Granada, Spain.

With the help of the southern Spanish autonomy of Andalucía, the sagging beige and burgundy building will be restored to a more respectable and original state of appearance.

“We're very proud to have a historic property,” said Carlos Berciano, the nephew of the owner, Estela Rodriguez.

But after a fire gutted the top floor and damaged the roof's beams just over a year ago, Estela Rodriguez didn't have the money to repair the damage, let alone take care of the worn-down exterior of the late-19 th Century structure.

“We're talking about a lot of money,” Berciano said.

To be more exact, close to $84,000 will go into the restoration, with the Culture Ministry and the Andalucían Council for Housing and Planning splitting the bill almost directly down the middle.

Even with the restoration, there are problems to face. One revamped building, surrounded by grimy structures lined in cracked paint, hardly transforms the block – though that was the idea.

See May 29 print or PDF edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

Costa Rican airline NatureAir celebrated the environmental conservation award it recently received at a press conference Tuesday, and called on other Costa Rican companies to join in the effort to reduce their carbon footprints.

Upon being given the 2009 Conservation Award from the World Travel and Tourism Council, NatureAir became the first airline to win salutations of that nature, said Carlo Sosto, the general manager of the airline.

“We are very proud of the award,” said Sosto. “It is an award also for the country, not just our company.”

Founded in 2000, NatureAir is the first airline in the world to become “carbon neutral.” By working with the governmental National Forestry Financing Fund, the company figures out how much land it needs to protect and reforest in order to offset its carbon emissions of the previous year.

“The amount of land we protect cleans or neutralizes the amount we consume,” said Sosto.

The company invests in primary forests in the Osa Peninsula, on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and has protected close to 250 acres of forest so far.

The award was a call for other Costa Rican companies to follow suit, said Environment Minister Jorge Rodríguez.

“We have been looking for allies in tourism companies,” said Rodríguez, of an aim to increase the number of sustainable adventure and nature tourism operators participating in conservation programs. He called the award a message to the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), saying it shows they can “serve something greater” by supporting conservation.

In addition to their carbon neutrality, NatureAir started a program to teach rural children about the importance of conservation. NatureKids also teaches the children English, to help prepare them for a diversified world, said Sosto.

While the airline has felt the strain of lower tourist numbers, it recently released travel deals in partnership with local car rental agencies, that will ensure the viability of both industries, said Alexi Huntley Khajavi, NatureAir's commercial director.

The Costa Rican government moved this week to defend its upcoming post as president pro tempore of the Central American Integration System (SICA) amid calls from Nicaragua to skip Costa Rica in favor of Guatemala.

Costa Rica refuted what it called the “hostile” remarks from Nicaraguan Foreign Vice Minister Manuel Coronel Kautz in an ongoing tit-for-tat between the two nations over who should assume SICA's rotating presidency once Nicaragua's turn ends in July.

“Costa Rica regrets the disrespectful, inappropriate and hostile language in statements made by the high Nicaraguan government official,” said a statement from Costa Rica's Foreign Ministry.

Referring to the prospect of Costa Rica at the helm of SICA, Coronel on Monday said, “We can't afford to put Central American integration at risk.”

For its part, Costa Rica's Foreign Ministry said the determination of who presides over SICA “is not in anyone's unilateral authority” to decide, “but rather corresponds to geographical order.”

However, critics point out the Costa Rican government has been a recalcitrant member of Central American initiatives, refusing to participate in the Central American Court of Justice, the Central American Parliament or the CA-4 immigration initiative.

President Oscar Arias last week expressed frustration with SICA, which has been under Nicaragua's watch for the past six months. “My experience is that these meetings are not good; the agendas are not made to address the principal problems facing Central American countries,” Arias said in statements published in the Costa Rican daily La Prensa Libre.

See the May 29 print or PDF edition of The Nica Times, a publication distributed with The Tico Times, for more on this story.

GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemala has shed at least 60,000 jobs in eight months because of the global economic crisis, government officials said Tuesday, but industry sector leaders called the estimate an understatement.

Employment Minister Edgar Rodríguez told reporters the hardest-hit sectors include textile, construction and tourism.

However, the Guatemala Chamber of Industry released a report on May 18 that cited the loss of as many as 150,000 jobs since 2008.

The artists' collective Grupo Los 20 has launched a new exhibit using river rocks as the foundation for 85 works of art to be displayed in two locations in Costa Rica's Central Valley.

Sebastián Mello, president of Grupo Los 20, says this is the first time common, natural river rocks have been sculpted, painted and otherwise adorned in a “primitive-contemporary” exhibit of this kind.

“Art lovers will have the opportunity to see the transformation of a simple rock into a work of art that evokes the face of a girl, a fish, a surreal landscape, a futuristic piece and dozens of other striking and creative shapes, colors and textures that are really different from what we're accustomed to seeing,” Mello said in a statement.

The exhibit, entitled “Rupestre,” will run through June 6 at the Mexico Institute, in the eastern San José neighborhood of Los Yoses, and at Corteza Amarilla hotel in Santa Ana, southwest of the capital. Admission is free. Works range in price from $100 to $700, and 20 percent of sales will go toward educational programs, according to the statement.

Formed in November, Grupo Los 20 is an artists' collective made up of no more than 20 artists at a time. “Rupestre” features works by Mello and 13 others, including Ricardo Alfieri, Ana Wien, Leda Astorga, Renate Bale, Francisco Castro and María Marta Pacheco. For more information about the group, call Mariela Barrantes at 2296-9618.