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Maleku People
The Maleku are an indigenous people of Costa Rica located in the Guatuso Indigenous Reserve near the town of Guatuso ( San Rafael de Guatuso). Historically they were also known as the Guatuso, the name used by Spanish colonizers. Around 600 aboriginal people live on the reserve, making this the smallest tribe in Costa Rica, but outsiders have come into the community as well. Before the Spanish colonization, their territory extended as far west as Rincon de la Vieja, and included the volcano Arenal to the south and Rio Celeste as sacred sites. Today their reserve is concentrated south of San Rafael de Guatuso, an hour north of La Fortuna. History The Maleku historically lived in the Río Frío watershed on a geographic span of 2,500 square miles. They remained undiscovered until 1750, with the arrival of Spanish settlers. Between 1868 and 1900, Nicaraguan rubber farmers migrated onto Maleku territory, often in armed bands, claiming traditional Maleku territories. The resul ...
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Endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and invasive species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List lists the global conservation status of many species, and various other agencies assess the status of species within particular areas. Many nations have laws that protect conservation-reliant species which, for example, forbid hunting, restrict land development, or create protected areas. Some endangered species are the target of extensive conservation efforts such as captive breeding and habitat restoration. Human activity is a significant cause in causing some species to become endangered. Conservation status The conservation status of a species indicates the likelihood that it will become extinct. Multiple factors are considered when assessi ...
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Maléku Language
The Maléku Jaíka language, also called Malecu, Maleku, Guatuso, Watuso-Wétar, and Guetar, is an Indigenous American language in Costa Rica. Classification The Maléku Jaíka language is a member of the Votic branch of the Chibchan language family. Maléku, or 'the speech of our people', is considered to be endangered according to ''The Endangered Languages Project''. According to the 2011 National Population Census, 67.5% of the population that lives in the official Maléku territory declared that they speak the language; however, the state of vitality varies from one village to another and even among families (Sánchez 2011). In any case, following the parameters of UNESCO, the language can be classified as definitively endangered (Sánchez 2013). History The Maleku people (usually called "Guatusos" in historical documents, travel chronicles of the 19th and 20th centuries, and in multiple academic studies) constitute one of the original peoples of the Costa Rican territory. ...
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Pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuries. The introduction of the pineapple to Europe in the 17th century made it a significant cultural icon of luxury. Since the 1820s, pineapple has been commercially grown in greenhouses and many tropical plantations. Pineapples grow as a small shrub; the individual flowers of the unpollinated plant fuse to form a multiple fruit. The plant is normally propagated from the offset produced at the top of the fruit, or from a side shoot, and typically matures within a year. Botany The pineapple is a herbaceous perennial, which grows to tall, although sometimes it can be taller. The plant has a short, stocky stem with tough, waxy leaves. When creating its fruit, it usually produces up to 200 flowers, although some large-fruited cultivars can ...
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Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge
Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge is a Wildlife refuge, part of the Arenal Huetar Norte Conservation Area, in the northern part of Costa Rica twenty kilometers south of Los Chiles near the border with Nicaragua in the Alajuela province. The refuge is a wetlands site that is home to many migratory waterfowl during part of the year, centered on Lake Caño Negro which is fed by the Frío River during the rainy season. Access Main access road is Route 138 which connects Route 4 and Route 35. Facilities There are no public facilities at the refuge, and the area can be explored only by boat, for which there is a dock as well as tourist facilities at the town of Caño Negro. Wildlife The forests, grasslands and marshes of the area provide shelter for various endangered species such as cougars, jaguars, tapirs, ocelots, peccary and several species of monkey (Panamanian white-faced capuchin, mantled howler and Geoffroy's spider monkey), as well as many others. In the dry season the ri ...
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Balsa Wood
''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma''. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, with the name ''balsa'' being the Spanish word for "raft." A deciduous angiosperm, ''Ochroma pyramidale'' can grow up to 30 m tall, and is classified as a hardwood despite the wood itself being very soft; it is the softest commercial hardwood and is widely used because of its light weight. Biology Balsa on Bota Hill, Limbe Botanical Garden, Cameroon">Limbe_Botanical_Garden.html" ;"title="Bota Hill, Limbe Botanical Garden">Bota Hill, Limbe Botanical Garden, Cameroon A member of the mallow family, ''Ochroma pyramidale'' is native from southern Mexico to southern Brazil, but can now be found in many other countries (Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Thailand, Solomon Islands). It is a pioneer plant, which establishes itself in clearings in forests, either man-m ...
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San José, Costa Rica
San José (; meaning "Saint Joseph") is the capital city, capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and the capital of San José Province, the province of the same name. It is in the center of the country, in the mid-west of the Costa Rican Central Valley, Central Valley, within San José Canton. San José is Costa Rica's seat of national government, focal point of political and economic activity, and major transportation hub. San José Canton's population was 288,054 in 2011, and San José's municipal land area is 44.2 square kilometers (17.2 square miles), with an estimated 333,980 residents in 2015. Together with several other cantons of the central valley, including Alajuela, Heredia, Costa Rica, Heredia and Cartago, Costa Rica, Cartago, it forms the country's Greater Metropolitan Area (Costa Rica), Greater Metropolitan Area, with an estimated population of over 2 million in 2017. The city is named in honor of Saint Joseph, Joseph of Nazareth. Founded in 1736 by order of Cab ...
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Toucan
Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and over forty different species. Toucans are arboreal and typically lay 2–4 white eggs in their nests. They make their nests in tree hollows and holes excavated by other animals such as woodpeckers—the toucan bill has very limited use as an excavation tool. When the eggs hatch, the young emerge completely naked, without any down. Toucans are resident breeders and do not migrate. Toucans are usually found in pairs or small flocks. They sometimes fence with their bills and wrestle, which scientists hypothesize they do to establish dominance hierarchies. In Africa and Asia, hornbills occupy the toucans' ecological niche, an example of convergent evolution. Taxonomy and systematics The name of this bird group is derived from th ...
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Tourists
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes". Tourism can be domestic (within the traveller's own country) or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments. Tourism numbers declined as a result of a strong economic slowdown (the late-2000s recession) between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and in consequence of the outbreak of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, but slowly recovered until the COVID-19 p ...
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Chibchan Languages
The Chibchan languages (also Chibchan, Chibchano) make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The name is derived from the name of an extinct language called ''Chibcha'' or ''Muysccubun'', once spoken by the people who lived on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of which the city of Bogotá was the southern capital at the time of the Spanish Conquista. However, genetic and linguistic data now indicate that the original heart of Chibchan languages and Chibchan-speaking peoples might not have been in Colombia, but in the area of the Costa Rica-Panama border, where the greatest variety of Chibchan languages has been identified. External relations A larger family called '' Macro-Chibchan'', which would contain the Misumalpan languages, Xinca, and Lenca, was found convincing by Kaufman (1990). Pache (2018) suggests a d ...
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Chicha
''Chicha'' is a fermented (alcoholic) or non-fermented beverage of Latin America, emerging from the Andes and Amazonia regions. In both the pre- and post- Spanish conquest periods, corn beer ('' chicha de jora'') made from a variety of maize landraces has been the most common form of ''chicha''. However, ''chicha'' is also made from a variety of other cultigens and wild plants, including, among others, quinoa (''Chenopodium quinia''), kañiwa (''Chenopodium pallidicaule''), peanut, manioc (also called yuca or cassava), palm fruit, rice, potato, oca (''Oxalis tuberosa''), and chañar (''Geoffroea decorticans''). There are many regional variations of ''chicha''. In the Inca Empire, ''chicha'' had ceremonial and ritual uses. Etymology and related phrases The exact origin of the word ''chicha'' is debated. One belief is that the word ''chicha'' is of Taino origin and became a generic term used by the Spanish to define any and all fermented beverages brewed by indigenous peo ...
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