New attempt on legislation allowing development in national parks in Costa Rica
Rincon de la Vieja volcano, Costa Rica (source: flickr/ Jelle H., creative commons)
Alexander Richter
11 Nov 2015
A new piece of legislation brought forward would allow geothermal development in national parks of Costa Rica, but with conservation measures built in that conform to conservation goals.
Reported locally, there is a new attempt at legislation that would allow geothermal development in three protected volcanic areas of Costa Rica.
This is despite confirmation from the administration of the Costa Rican government that it will not seek to change legislation allowing for development in national parks.
The bill proposed now by the office of governing Citizen Action Party legislator Ottón Solís is taking conservationists’ concerns into account, that refer to the national parks of Rincón de la Vieja, Tenorio and Arenal. It will value conservation goals of the protected areas, requiring the Costa Rica Electricity Institute (ICE), or any other developer – to compensate for land used for projects with land outside the park.
“The land would not be sequestered by ICE as initially proposed, but rather remain in the hands of the Costa Rica National Park Service, which would assure that the projects continue to protect habitat. Conservationists have been particularly concerned about the sequestration of parkland for the precedent it would set for the entire national park system.
“The new plan would substitute a bill that was shelved in May 2014 amid an outcry by conservationists over plans by ICE to sequester 1,000 hectares of land inside Rincón de la Vieja National Park in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, which as part of the Guanacaste Conservation Area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.
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Source: The Tico Times
