Tonight's Ticket Sales for Award-Winning
“Caribe” Movie to Help Flood Victims
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net

Tonight, and only tonight, you don't have to be a Latin romance film lover or an anti-oil drilling environmentalist to enjoy Costa Rica's biggest blockbuster film “Caribe.” You can do it to help flood victims.

The film's director, Esteban Ramírez, voted best director in Italy's 2004 Trieste film festival, made a deal with Costa Rican theaters to donate every colón earned at tonight's showings of Caribe to the thousands of people who lost their belongings, and in some cases their homes, in last week's floods.

“Caribe was very satisfying – the filming of it. We received a lot of care from the people in the Caribbean,” Ramírez told The Tico Times, adding he would like to return the favor. He mentioned in particular the indigenous Bribrí community, many of whom lost their belongings to the flood, who befriended him while he filmed in the area.

“This is a voluntary way to help them,” he said.

Caribe is entering its 12th week in Costa Rican box offices, where it has far surpassed any other Costa Rican-made movie in sales and critical praise. It was also lavished with international awards, including four in Spain's 2004 Huelga film festival, where it was given the people's choice award for the best movie, and has shown well in film festivals throughout Latin America.

The Magaly theater in San José and in the Mall San Pedro, in San Pedro, east of San José, will show the movie at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and Cinépolis in the Terramall, near Cartago also east of San José, will show it at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Costa Rica Reduces Use of
Ozone-Destroying Chemical
By Rebecca Kimitch
Tico Times Staff
rkimitch@ticotimes.net

A five-year project to eliminate the use of the ozone layer-destroying pesticide methyl bromide has been labeled a success after its first year.

Melon and flower growers, who have made Costa Rica one of the world's leading users of the chemical, are on track to eliminate its use by 2008, project coordinators announced yesterday.

Methyl bromide is believed to have caused 10-14% of the damage to the ozone layer. It is also one of the cheapest methods for controlling pests during the cultivation of melons, flowers and tobacco, according to Tatiana Sibaja, spokeswoman for the Project for Alternatives to Methyl Bromide.

The project – administered by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and funded by the Montreal Protocol – has worked to find alternatives for growers. Both chemical and biological alternatives have been found, with the latter considered the must successful because of price and environmental friendliness, a project statement said.

In the first year of the project, Costa Rica succeeded in reducing its methyl bromide use from a yearly average of more than 600 metric tons to 498 metric tons.

The reduction takes Costa Rica off the list of the world's top ten users of the chemical, which includes China, Mexico, South Africa, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Honduras and Turkey.

These countries have similar projects to eliminate use, Sibaja said, adding that Costa Rica has been a leader in elimination among Central American countries.

“If we succeed in ending damaging behavior in the short term, the ozone could be repaired within 50 years,” she said.

The End is Not Near,
It's Just a Little Cold
By Robert Goodier
Tico Times Staff
rgoodier@ticotimes.net

In spite of predictions of the world's last days, the I-told-you-so's of global warming gurus and even all the El Niño hoopla, bundling up against the biting cold and the impressively high winds is par for the course this time of year.

It's just a cold front – the last delivery from the North Pole to round out the holiday season. So says, in not so many words, meteorologist José Manuel Montoya, of the National Meteorology Institute.

Winds of 40-60 kilometers per hour over land have left boat tour operators in the northern Pacific distraught, and light rains in the Caribbean basin have complicated efforts to assist the thousands of people displaced by last week's floods.

Yesterday morning the Red Cross airlifted two fishermen from Siquirres, on the Caribbean slope, when the river they were fishing on rose and cut off their path to higher ground. Having learned from the devastation of the quickly swelling rivers last week, the Red Cross sent a first-aid team and a speed boat to the riverside town of Sixaola, on the Panamanian border, just in case.

Meanwhile, Montoya predicts wind and rain throughout the region and the northern Pacific zone until Thursday.

Yesterday was the coldest day in San José this month. The mercury floundered at 14.6°C - 18.1C (58.3°F – 64.6°F), and is not expected to top 20°C (68°F) until Thursday, Montoya said.