Apr

19

Marina and Environmental Concerns Draw National and International Media Attention

April 19, 2008 | Tags: Community News, Economic Development, Environment | 5 Comments

Tortugero Canals
Tourists watch for monkeys along the canals of Tortuguero National Park. Government reports released last fall revealed that 97 percent of Costa Rica’s sewage flows untreated into rivers, streams, or the ocean. Photo by David Sherwood, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor

The hot issues of development and the environment and the way they are being played against each other continue to draw a lot of media attention to the Puerto Viejo area.

The Tico Times again features the story this week as their Top Story. The article, entitled Puerto Viejo Marina Plan Eyed Warily by Natives, discusses the effect that the marina project would have on the local Bri Bri people.  The article proposes that the project could not only damage the low-key ecotourism that the area has developed on but could also herald the disappearance of Talamanca’s other resource, the indigenous culture.

Timoteo Jackson, a native Bribrí leader, is quoted as saying, “for us indigenous, this is only a bad thing.

“Right now, we have tourists coming to see nature, conservation and the indigenous way, but this will stop if the marina comes.”

The influential Christian Science Monitor recently weighed in on the struggle to find a balance between sustaining nature and continuing economic development in Costa Rica. The article, entitled Costa Rica sees tourism’s environmental dark side, goes into the water quality problems that recently caused the shutdown of several large hotels on the Pacific and the loss of blue flag status for a number of Costa Rica’s beaches, including our own Playa Negra.

The article strikes an alarming tone: “In the past decade, construction of hotels, second homes, and condominiums has surged in coastal regions, taking advantage of a vacuum in planning and enforcement. The total land area that has been developed grew 600 percent in that time, according to a government report. As a result, the biodiversity that has long lured visitors is disappearing, say scientists. Monkey and turtle populations are plummeting, and infrastructure is strained to a near breaking point.”

But it does go on to acknowledge that, despite all the problems, ”Costa Rica remains decades ahead of its neighbors” in environmenal protection and that the goverment “seems increasingly willing to listen.”

Televison news has not shied away from coverage either as this TV news report shows:

If you can’t view the video on this page, click here to see it on YouTube.