DIGITAL NATURE PROJECT.Costa Rica Costa Rica (kŏs`tə rē`kə), officially Republic of Costa Rica, republic (2005 est. pop. 4,016,000), 19,575 sq mi (50,700 sq km), Central America. is putting all its animal and plant life online to create a digital record of its rich natural wealth, reports BBC BBC in full British Broadcasting Corp. Publicly financed broadcasting system in Britain. A private company at its founding in 1922, it was replaced by a public corporation under royal charter in 1927. News (Feb. 25, 2003). The National Biodiversity biodiversity: see biological diversity. biodiversity Quantity of plant and animal species found in a given environment. Sometimes habitat diversity (the variety of places where organisms live) and genetic diversity (the variety of traits expressed Institute (Inbio) has developed an information management system called Atta to catalogue species at risk from farming and logging, said Dr. Erick Mata Montero mon·te·ro n. pl. mon·te·ros A hunter's cap with side flaps. [Spanish, hunter, from monte, mountain, from Latin m , coordinator of information management for the institute. Inbio was set up in 1989 as a non-governmental non-profit institute to increase awareness of Costa Rica's fauna and flora. "We know we will be busy for the next 20 years. We are aiming at conducting a whole inventory of the biodiversity of Costa Rica," he said. Costa Rica has one of the highest indices of biodiversity per area, as it shelters 4% of the world's biological diversity. The country is estimated to have between 12,000 and 14,000 species of plants, 40,000 kinds of beetles, and 20,000 species of butterflies. Copyright 2003 |
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