Biden Meets With Arias
And Central American Presidents, Asks For
Patience
Internet Meet
Your New Processor Designed In Costa Rica
San Jose
Temperature Hit Record 30.5 C (87 F) Monday
Tourism
Threatens Costa Rica's Natural Assets
Frontier
Airlines Offers $149 Fares To Costa Rica
Thursday and
Friday of Semana Santa Will Be "Dry"
Guanacaste Has Highest
Fertility Rates In The country
Tourism
Threatens Costa Rica's Natural Assets
By John McPhaul
Pungent brown sewage spews into the Pacific
ocean. In the background, cranes put up
hotels and beachfront apartments. Once home
to monkeys, turtles and other rare wildlife,
this stretch of coast in northwest Costa
Rica is developing so fast that it is
tarnishing the country's reputation as a
destination for eco-tourists.
Some 1.4 million people visit Central
America's richest country every year, but
they no longer come just for the national
parks that cover more than a quarter of its
area and are home to almost 5 percent of the
world's plant and animal species.
They also want sand, surf and even real
estate.
The biggest stimulus came when the airport
at nearby Liberia began handling
international flights five years ago,
putting the previously little-known
Guanacaste province within, for example,
three hours of Miami.
With tropical sunshine, sandy beaches and
surf, developers saw a chance to attract
everyone from surfers and honeymooners to
U.S. retirees seeking a second home,
transforming sleepy towns with names like
Tamarindo, Quepos, Playas del Coco and Jaco.
The result is rampant construction that
environmentalists fear could balloon into
noisy, sprawling resorts with cruise ship
ports and golf courses like those of Cancun,
Mexico, which guzzle water and pollute the
environment.
"These cases of poorly planned tourist
developments in Costa Rica could affect the
well-deserved reputation as a pioneer in
eco-tourism," said Ronald Sanabria, a Costa
Rican who works for the Rainforest Alliance,
an international advocate for
sustainability.
Already, Costa Rica has lost up to half of
its monkey population in the last 12 years
as developers expand into their jungle
habitat, according to scientists at the
University of Costa Rica.
Light pollution from Tamarindo is making
life harder for leatherback turtles. The
town's lights disorient the tiny hatchlings,
sending them toward the luminescence instead
of out to sea, where they are safer from
predators.
"These large-scale tourism projects have big
consequences for the environment," said
Fabian Pacheco, of the Costa Rican
Federation for the Conservation of Nature.
The issue is a familiar one in developing
countries as they weigh the benefits of
tourist dollars that come with high-rise
hotels against the loss of greenery when
virgin land is paved over.
Tourism is Costa Rica's top foreign exchange
earner. Property developers point to the big
contribution the construction sector makes
to the economy, accounting for 5 percent of
gross domestic product and growing by 16
percent last year.
The tourist boom has also created jobs in a
poor region. "It's been good for the locals.
Most of them are happy to have good, decent
jobs," said Denise Shante, 51, a Canadian
property broker who sells apartments priced
up to $2.5 million.
As Costa Rica attracts more mainstream
tourism, neighboring Panama is aggressively
promoting its own eco-tourism credentials.
The breakneck development has the government
and even the tourism industry worried.
When rains overflowed septic tanks in
Tamarindo, tons (tonnes) of raw sewage
flowed into the ocean and the resort lost
its "blue flag" issued by Costa Rica's water
utility to indicate healthy ocean water
conditions.
"Costa Rica can no longer project the pure
image of an eco-tourism paradise since
reality shows investors are free to develop
more and more projects without clear rules,"
the Costa Rican Hotel and Resorts
Association warned in a report in May.
President Oscar Arias, whose government
wants to cut the country's net carbon
emissions to zero by 2021, has begun a
crackdown at newer Pacific resorts, closing
some businesses and ordering height
restrictions on buildings near the beach.
"Tamarindo and Jaco got out of our hands,
but our scientists are working on ways of
assuring development that is compatible with
nature," Arias told Reuters.
The Costa Rican Chamber of Construction says
unregulated building is still going on, and
in Tamarindo the most prominent feature is
its building sites swarming with laborers.
The town, world-famous for its surf, bustles
with surfers and tanned shoppers who fill
its shops, bars and restaurants.
Some, like Shawn O'Neil, 28, a surfer from
San Diego, California, say it is unfair to
rope off pretty beaches for an elite who can
afford expensive eco-resorts while shutting
out those who prefer cheaper all-inclusive
hotels.
"People say how built up Tamarindo is, but
it doesn't seem like much after San Diego
and Los Angeles."
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