A Catalyst Grant was awarded to CSD to expand their initiatives in Latin America. CSD promotes non-profit involvement to strengthen strategic proactive environmental alliances between the private and public sectors in both Latin America and the United States. They experimented on polycultural plantations with polycyclic harvesting as a viable alternative to traditional monospecific, monocyclic plantations and the logging and clearing of primary forest in Costa Rica's Northern Zone. The project incorporates the added benefit of restoring critical wildlife habitat. The thermometer allows the students to obtain fast, accurate readings of surface temperatures, liquids and gas and the hygrometer provides quick and precise measures of relative humidity and air temperature.
Amphibians are especially sensitive to contamination from agrochemicals.
This Grant will have far-reaching effects, as many students will use the equipment that is purchased. A Catalyst Grant was awarded to a group of students from the Wildlife Management School at Costa Rica's National University. The grant allowed the students to spend six weeks doing research in the community of San Miguelito along the Eastern Shore of Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River at the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. This information was then presented to the international conservation community at the May 1999 Ramsar Conference in Costa Rica. Together, the two groups produced a map of the area's wetlands, held a workshop for local landowners, and worked with them to develop a conservation and management plan.