Costa Rica's relationship with the environment
- Stefania Dall'Armi
- Apr 2, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 27, 2020
PRE-COP 25 - Conference on Climate Change hosted by Costa Rica in 2019POLITICS & ENVIRONMENT
In the recent years, Costa Rica politics has become quite divided on social issues and human rights. Different movements have born from traditional parties with new values and a lot of strengths. Curiously, the only issue that unites the ideology of almost all the fragmented parties is 'Environment'. Environment, which in Europe mainly characterises green or progressive parties, in Costa Rica appears as a priority in almost every political agenda.
Environmental journalist, Sebastián Rodriguez believes there is enough consensus among the political parties when talking about protecting the environment and developing the country: "Out of the 10 political parties right now in Congress, there is just one, Partido Unidad Socialcristiana (PUSC), in English Social Christian Unity Party, that is actively asking for fossil fuel production," Rodriguez adds. "They are demanding that the country invests in building fossil fuel pools and exporting natural gas. However that is not very common. They tried to push a referendum on that issue but it didn’t really have a lot of support."
Differently from Europe, Costa Rica does not have any 'Green Party' in Congress. However, that is not an exception as these parities are fairly uncommon in Latin America. On the other hand, it is more common to see socialist parties with a long-running history in environmental action and environmental politics. This is the case of Frente Amplio (FA), in English Broad Front, defined by progressive, socialist, green, social justice, human rights and democratic ideas. "It has one deputy in Congress but it is not popular or close to winning an election," reveals Rodriguez. "However most parties are already adopting environmental policies," he continues. "Some of them are more serious, they have adopted in a more serious action plan and others because they have a social focus agenda."
BIODIVERSITY
The Costa Rican government has implemented policies throughout the years to promote less destructive land use, conservation of the biodiversity, and formal protections for large parts of the region. These policies include ecotourism, eco-hotels, taxes, protected areas, and funding for conservation groups.
In 1998, the Costa Rican government implemented the Biodiversity Act, which has remained in effect today. According to the Costa Rica Embassy "it deals with the social demand to conserve and protect biodiversity and endangered species. It also includes measures on the social demand to conserve, protect and sustainably exploit biological resources to ensure the quality of life of future generations and the survival of natural heritage." Protections remain to ensure the health of the natural habitat also when land is used for farming, agriculture or industry (1). Following the implementation of this Law, Costa Rica created a National Commission on Biodiversity, a group comprised of passionate community members, including scientists, politicians, activists and indigenous representatives, who act as an ecological think tank for the state (2).
DEFORESTATION
However, the impact of Costa Rica on its environment has not always been positive. Deforestation had a massive impact on Costa Rica land covered with rainforest. They passed from covering three fourth of the country in the 1940s to only a 21% in the 1980s. It was considered one of the worst deforestation in the whole region of Latin America in those years (3).
However, from the beginning of the new century the government dedicated a large part of time and money in its reforestation. It firstly implemented a program called PAGOS POR SERVICIOS AMBIENTALES (PSA) which aims to "encourage land users, so that they continue to offer an (ecological) environmental service that benefits society as a whole. In some cases, payments seek for land users to adopt use practices that ensure the provision of a particular service (e.g. planting trees for carbon sequestration purposes)". It is not only beneficial for the ecosystems but it has also become an economic option for private owners, to earn some money from conserving the forests. It has finally transformed the deforestation rates in a way that it hadn’t happened never in all the Latin America region. The plan has been very successful and shows that the real strength of the country is not in conserving the national parks, which has always been protected, but to repair the damage made to weaker parts of its land.
MINING PROJECTS
An activity with a negative impact on Costa Rica's environment were all the open-pit mining projects developed on the surface of the land and for its exploitation, it was necessary to excavate, causing irreversible consequences on the valuable rainforests. Costa Rica has 314 records of mines listed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The “Crucitas” mining project, located in the North of Costa Rica near the boarder with Nicaragua, was one of the more damaging for the environment, provoking the total loss of the tropical humid primary forest, the widening and deterioration of natural water current drainage, the generation of many tons of dispersed tailings material, the change of use of soils, which gives rise to the presence of weeds and scrubs, acids accumulation, abundant residues of solid waste and visual contamination. But it is also dangerous for the health of the workers which had to deal with dangerous products such as mercury (4).
Mining projects continued until 2010, when the Costa Rican Supreme Court of Justice specifically banned open-pit mining. Since then the Canadian gold mining corporation, Infinito Gold, has been trying to convince the Costa Rica government to reopen them and started a partnership. The former President Óscar Arias made the court annulled the decree and declared the Crucitas mining project of “public interest”. This led the prosecution to open a legal case against the former president, but also the Canadian multinational, which was required to pay compensation for the environmental damage caused to the country. However, the legal battle between Costa Rica and Infinito Gold is still open. The company claims that they have already spent close to a billion dollars on this gold mining project in Costa Rica and therefore are attempting to sue the nation for $1 billion (4).
The situation in still quite tense in Costa Rica and closely observed by other countries where controversial mining projects are still existing such as Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. The good news of this were that soon after the scandals and controversiality of former president Arias' actions the Costa Ricans citizens have been called to polls. 90% of the voters opposed open-pit mining, for the respect of their natural environment and the future of all the inhabitants of the land. Today, mining projects are illegal in Costa Rica (5).
CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTIONS
Last year Costa Rica hosted for the first time in history the PRE-COP 25 preparatory meeting for the Conference of Parties (COP 25). These meetings are organised by the United Nations Climate Change Convention (UNCCC) and aim to contribute with the global process to call for ambition and climate action, the process of negotiation within the framework of the Convention and the Paris Agreement. However, Costa Rica revolutionised its structure and topics' agenda as they wanted an unconventional meeting focused on the climate action process rather than just the negotiations. Few days after the conference, the UN named Costa Rica "Champion of the Earth" for its plan to decarbonise (6).
(1) Biodiversity Act
(4) Mining
(6) PRE COP 25
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