Serious Environmental Lapses of the 2006-2010 Arias Administration

Oscar Arias Sanchez's 2006-2010 term will go down as a period of social polarization, including with respect to the environment. The decisive line followed from the start has been the benefit of a minority to the detriment of the majority. The government's environmental discourse in global forums, basing itself on the country's long record and historical commitment to the environment, is totally inconsistent with what it does domestically; this has led to a sharp retreat and possibly irreversible damage which will be paid by future as well as current generations.

As part of this sad legacy, and to keep us from forgetting it, the Grupo Llamado Urgente por el Pais and other organizations are bringing to public notice some of the most representative errors we are inheriting from this administration.

Expanded Pineapple Cultivation. It may come as a surprise to learn that in these four years the area planted to pineapples has expanded from 15,000 hectares (2004-2005) to more than 54,000 hectares (Agriculture Ministry data) – and possibly much more, if the agrarian census were updated. This growth has been sold as being beneficial to the country, increasing the number of jobs and development. In the pineapple areas, however, the opposite is true. Both land tenancy and produced wealth are concentrated in very few hands, while environmental damage, disease and plagues of flies hit all areas of society. Since July 2007, more than 6,000 people in Siquirres drink trucked-in water at a cost of US $27,000 per month, paid for by the A&A (national water company); and no complaints have been filed by institutions in defense of the principle "he who pollutes, pays" against the companies responsible for polluting the water tables with Bromacil and other toxic substances. While the government publicizes its campaign for massive tree plantings (mostly limited to exotic species planted in monocultures by lumber companies), aerial photographs of the pineapple expansion show the massive elimination of forested areas, even in protected river zones. In addition, for lack of good environmental practices, the activity has led to soil, surface and underground water contamination and other environmental impacts due to erosion and solid waste production. Sites like Cano Negro are bleeding to death with the utmost impunity.

Mining. The 2002 moratorium on mining for metals, issued by the Pacheco administration, had justification. Costa Rica was being flooded with mining company applications for exploiting the country's mineral resources, and the country had no legal, technical or environmental resources to deal with this issue. Even though little progress was made to correct this situation, the Arias administration lifted the moratorium in 2008, without consultation, opening a mining Pandora's box (which in the administration's last few days, after 90% of the public opposed the mining, it has tried to close, only days away from the February 2010 elections, but without issuing a n executive decree to that effect). Nevertheless, during this open period, the changed Crucitas strip mining proposal was given environmental feasibility and declared of national benefit, both of which were challenged, but within two days the Canadian mining company had swept away more than fifty hectares of forest in San Carlos. Today this mining project, the largest in Central America, is on hold thanks to 18 appeals filed on the grounds of unconstitutionality by social and environmental organizations in the country. The technical and legal debate during the Constitutional Chamber hearing of November 2009 – the most intense in the Chamber's entire history – clarified the consequences this decision could have for the country and its future. The country is facing an historic juncture. If this permit is granted, it would lead to a swarm of mining companies that would be hard to stop with the responsibilities acquired through CAFTA.

Chorotega Decree and Coastal Real Estate Development. Almost two years into the administration, Executive Decree No. 34456-MP-MIVAH-TUR-MINAE-COM was issued to "regulate" real estate development in a four kilometer-wide coastal strip in Guanacaste and the Cobano, Paquera and Lepanto region. The "justification" for the decree was to regulate in the absence of zoning plans and prohibit high-rise buildings in the 200 meters of maritime terrestrial zone. It does, however, allow buildings of up to four stories in this zone, and of up to nine stories in a land strip from one to four kilometers from the beach. Population densities of up to
90,000 people per square kilometer were set for urban development, without any environmental criteria. All of this at the cost of the forests, mangrove forests, protection areas, and watershed recharge areas and – worse yet – without guaranteeing basic services such as water or garbage collection. Fortunately, the real estate crisis in the United States put the brakes on real estate investment, keeping another decree similar to the one for Puntarenas from being issued. The danger is still latent, however, and the decree's intent will not be erased by history.

Water and Sardinal. During these four years the urgent Water Resource Act is still awaiting approval. It has obviously not been a government priority. Erroneous decisions have been made, however, that now require urgent corrective action. The case of Sardinal speaks for itself. Without consultation or the respective technical studies, the decision was imposed to extract water from the aquifer in the alluvial valley where the community of Sardinal is situated, in order to supply coastal real estate developments in Playa Hermosa and Playas del Coco in the Carrillo canton. This was a clear example of a lack of natural resource and land use planning and zoning. The administration, after investing in and initiating construction of the aqueduct, and after seeking technical justification by pressuring certain institutions such as SENARA and the Water Department, had to halt work by order of the Constitutional Chamber. These works can be seen today as a living example of how things should not be done in this country. The inauguration in September 2009 of Hotel Riu in Playa Matapalo, with its 701 rooms in a semi-arid area lacking sufficient water for the communities, has probably exacerbated tempers even more.

Baulas and Protected Zones. This administration has tried to open up real estate development in the Playa Grande area bordering the Las Baulas National Marine Park, where one of the world's premier sites for leatherback turtle nesting is found. Various means have been used to achieve this goal, including an attempt to pass a law for reducing the national park’s status to wildlife refuge, under the pretext that funds are lacking for paying for expropriations. Ignoring the technical and legal position of various institutions, it has maintained its stand of declassifying the national park to benefit real estate development in buffer zone, qualified hydrologically as extremely vulnerable. The tactics of manipulating public opinion recently employed by Minister Jorge Rodriguez are aimed at making people believe that "there are hundreds of families living in protected areas" and that "these protected areas were created in previously established communities which are part of that sustainable environmental, social and economic balance", so "eviction would generate serious social problems." The Baulas case, with its national park classification, is not part of this debate. Added to this attempt are a series of executive decrees issued by this administration for reducing or eliminating various protected areas. The Arias administration is the first in many years that has not created a new national park, evidence of the "forgetting" of the signed commitments made to the world in the Biological Diversity Convention for creating new protected areas and strengthening the national system for safeguarding critically endangered biodiversity. The administration has also been found wanting on the issue of protected marine areas, as well, and has irresponsibly ignored the problem of shark finning.

Competitiveness and SETENA. One of the main duties of the Competitiveness Minister (without portfolio) was to reinforce and modernize the SETENA, the institution charged with granting environmental feasibility to new investment projects by means of a highly technical, impartial environmental impact study. Thus, an organization for maximum deconcentration, whose independent criteria should be free of any political influence, was placed under the "support" and "care" of the Minister of Competitiveness. It is not surprising that environmental feasibility for a project such as Crucitas was granted in just six weeks, while projects of lesser impact sometimes have to wait months for approval. Neither is it strange that the Mixed Commission, which enjoys broad social participation and the technical advisory of SETENA, has not been convoked to deal with procedures throughout most of this administration. Finally, even less surprising is why SETENA has issued new procedures by decree in these last two years, arbitrarily and without consultation – some of which are even illegal.

With two executive decrees, various articles of the Biodiversity Act (BA)
have been modified. In desperation to meet the final wishes of the U.S. government in order to "certify" for the CAFTA, the Arias administration modified Articles 78.6 and 80 of the BA in December 2008. The "interpretation" of Article 78.6 allows for inventions directly deriving from the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples or farm communities to be patented, to the obvious benefit of biotechnological and pharmaceutical companies. The modification to Article 80 eliminates the binding nature of the well-founded opposition of the National Commission for Biodiversity Management (CONAGEBIO) against patent applications for elements of Costa Rican biodiversity that violate the objectives of the Biological Diversity Convention. The change means that the only reason the CONAGEBIO can now oppose an application is for violation of patent law. These executive decrees were issued without consulting anyone – not even the indigenous peoples, as required by ILO Convention 169, or CONAGEBIO, whose powers have been reduced. Both decrees have been challenged in the Constitutional Chamber, which has recently agreed to study them.

Decree for Opening up the Containing Circle. In February of this year, the administration continued its task, issuing an executive decree opening up to intensive urbanization a strip of up to 200 meters in the containing circle of the Greater Metropolitan Area, leaving highly and extremely highly environmentally fragile areas exposed to urban development, under the pretext that there was no area for development within the containing circle, and justifying it with the environmental feasibility of the PRUGAM. It intends, however, to urbanize new, highly fragile areas, putting their future inhabitants at risk, while there are more than 9,000 hectares for urbanizing within the Greater Metropolitan Area and it would have been much simpler to approve the PRUGAM plan. What lies behind this decree will have to be debated before the Constitutional Court, which has admitted an appeal on the grounds of unconstitutionality and has suspended enforcement until a ruling is handed down. Likewise, explanations are still pending for noncompliance with a 2008 ruling requiring a marking off of the protection area decreed in Decree-Law 65 of 1888 (which declared much of the mountains in northern Heredia and part of Alajuela as inalienable) – and where today there is real estate development underway.

In Closing. During these last few weeks, a series of executive decrees have been prepared or are under preparation following this same line, which, when issued, will finish tarnishing the environmental image of the current Arias Sanchez administration. Decrees such as those of the landscape and communication towers or the one for changing the method of introducing the environmental variable in zoning plans, despite the fact that more than 50 municipal governments have used it or are using it, are just a few more mistaken ideas the executive branch is urgently promoting. It is also pressuring its outgoing legislators to speed through Congress and approve before May 8 the ill-starred marine law and maritime terrestrial zone law amendment (which would grant rights in perpetuity to large international tourism transnationals in our coastal areas, as has already been done in Papagayo).

It is exceedingly strange that the President, in inaugurating the judicial year, should warn all the country's magistrates, stating, "I don't know if the judicial branch members lose any sleep over the investments Costa Rica loses because of the volatility of some of their decisions affecting our economy, but I do," when it is the reckless, "volatile" executive decrees issued during his administration, without consultation and lacking in technical criteria, that have led to the current situation. All, without exception, have ended up in the higher courts, which have been called upon to contain this unprecedented assault on nature over these four years.

To sum up, we can say, without fear of being mistaken, that the refrain of the 2006-2010 Arias administration with respect to the environment has been "deeds are worth more that words." In this case, some of the deeds laid out here – among many others – are worth much more than the pretty words in the presidential speeches on "Peace with Nature"

Llamado Urgente por el País, Costa Rican Federation of Environmental Organizations (FECON) Asociación Pro – Mejoras de Tamarindo, Association of La Ceiba Ecological Communities (COECOCEIBA), Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Law (CEDARENA) Coope – SoliDar R.L, Association for Social Ecology (AESO) Oilwatch Costa Rica, Confraternidad Guanacasteca, Central American Water Action Network (FANCA), Central American Regional Association for Water and the Environment (ARCA), Fundación Opinión Ambiental, Justicia para la Naturaleza, Comité Bandera Azul Ecológica de San Miguel Asociación Ambiental del Norte de San Rafael de Heredia Bosques Nuestros, Sea Turtle Restoration Program (PRETOMA), Asociación Red de Coordinación en Biodiversidad, Asociación Terra Nostra, Asociación Ambientalista de Siquirres Asociación de Estudiantes de Derecho (Faculty of Law,UCR) Costa Rican Academy of Environmental Law (A.D.A) Asociación Proyecto Alternativos (PROAL), Friends of the Pacuare River, Union for Life (UNOVIDA), APREFLOFAS.