Groups Unite Against Proposed Tuna Farm in Golfo Dulce Costa Rica
Ten Costa Rican organizations have filed an official denouncement at the Environmental Court against the Environmental Secretariat (SETENA) and the Department of Water Resources after a tuna farm project, proposed by the company Granjas Atuneras de Golfito S.A. was approved by both entities.

The denouncement calls for the nullification of project permits and a halt to all project activities until the Court rules on the case. Official nullification requests have also been filed at SETENA and the Department of Water Resources calling for the cancellation of all resolutions emitted to approve the project.

The groups will also be filing a suit at the Constitutional Court in the coming days.

Granjas Atuneras de Golfito S.A. presented their “Environmental Impact Study” at SETENA on October 31, 2004. SETENA approved the project on August 19, 2005 and the Department of Water Resources approved a water use concession on December 16, 2005.

The first stage of the project would consist of installing 10 initial cylindrical net cages where tuna would be cultivated. The footprint of the installations would cover 12 square kilometers just one kilometer off shore from the town of Punta Banco at the mouth of the Golfo Dulce.

However, the company wants to install net cages from Punta Banco all the way to Punta Burica. This would further the industrialization and destruction of the region which is currently famous for its pristine environment.

The groups opposing the project denounce the complete lack of transparency in the process of approving the project.

Transparency and local involvement are required by the laws governing SETENA.

The communities which would be most directly impacted by the tuna farm, such as Golfito, Pavones, Punta Banco and Caña Blanca, the latter being an indigenous reserve, were not consulted by SETENA. Local fishermen, sports fishing operators, as well as tourism and ecotourism groups were kept out of the process. Local NGOs working with community members for decades to promote conservation of the unique biodiversity of the region were also not consulted.

In addition to the lack of transparency, national law was violated when the project was approved because the Environmental Impact Study does not contain risk assessments.

There are multiple irreversible risks that groups note were completely left out of the so called environmental impact study, such as red tides, death of sea turtles and dolphins, reduction of already diminished tuna stocks, parasites from imported tuna feed, and negative impacts on the two most important industries of the gulf, artisinal fishing and tourism/ecotourism. The project would also be an experiment; the cultivation of yellow fin tuna in net cages, has never been done anywhere in the world.

The executive decree 24282 MP MAG MIRENEM requires that a management plan be in place before marine projects are approved. Approving the proposed tuna project represents additional violation of national law because no management plan exists for the Golfo Dulce.

“The Golfo Dulce, with its delicate ecology and unique status as a tropical fjord, is the last place on earth where we should be developing an experiment such as this,” states Denise Echeverría of Foundation Vida Marina. “The proposed project represents a threat to the biodiversity of the entire Gulf and the livelihoods of communities which depend on it.”

“What we see here is most likely political dealing,” points out Randall Arauz. “The approval of the project by SETENA and the Department of Water Resources, the lack of transparency and zero risk analysis are indicative of orders from superiors of the Ministry of Environment in the previous administration, to approve the project, which is backed by foreign capital, probably as a political favor.”