Is Costa Rica Truly Conservation Minded?

From the Environmental Review Newsletter Volume Two Number Three: March 1995

Introduction:

Dr. J. Robert Hunter has spent over forty years in the tropics, much of it studying tropical agriculture, forestry, land use and conservation. He received the Ph.D in agronomy from Michigan State University in 1951 and is now a Fellow in the Herbarium of the Botany Department of the University of Wisconsin.

In his article in Conservation Biology, Dr. Hunter pointed out some of the realities of present-day Costa Rica which belie the idea that Costa Rica is a model for conservation and environmental awareness. Such realities include: natural resource depletion and unsustainable agriculture, deforestation and habitat destruction, dubious reforestation schemes, gold mining in the Corcovado National Park; and a human population that has increased five fold since 1950. It is clear in speaking with Dr. Hunter that it is out of concern for Costa Rica and its people that he points out the unpleasant facts; that despite public relations to the contrary, all is not well in that Central American country.

ER: Dr. Hunter, why is Costa Rica considered to have one of the better environmental records of the developing countries?

RH: Costa Rica has been rather enlightened in many ways and has been looked upon as a place where people, especially those interested in nature, could go and be welcome. This has been particularly true in the past for scientists who made collections of the flora and fauna. On the surface Costa Rica appears to be an ideal place: it is easy to get to, the people are nice, it is pacific - it is one place where there has been a long tradition of democracy - but unfortunately, the average tico - that is what they call themselves - is simply not much interested in its splendid and varied environment.

Until recently when the situation began to change, one could go anywhere in the country without concern. For fifteen years I directed a junior year abroad program for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest there and we had university students, both men and women carrying out their research studies throughout the country. Many lived with families way out in the boonies and we never had any problem.

ER: Why has that changed?

RH: That has changed for several reasons: one, there has been an inundation of refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The worst slums I have ever seen in my life are just west of the city of Puerto Viego in the northeastern, Sarapiqui region where foreign laborers crowd into cardboard shacks with plastic bag roofing. There is no electricity, no running water, no proper latrines. Major urban areas throughout Costa Rica are beginning to feel this pressure as well. This crowding, coupled with an increase in drug trafficking has spawned a growth in crime rate. All this in a country that prides itself on social causes, social improvements and higher education.

ER: No army.

RH: Right. No army, although they do have the Guardia Rural. Despite this, Costa Rica is a special place and the ticos would like to have the world recognize it as being unique and noteworthy. But you cannot deny nor overlook the problems which become more obvious as time goes on. I have spent a great deal of my time, energy and hopes there and I am distressed to see what is taking place. I have had people from Africa, for instance, travel through and fly over Costa Rica with me and they say "My God, this country is absolutely incredible for a third world country." But when you look at what is going on a bit deeper, you find the situation is getting worse.

ER: What is causing the problems in Costa Rica?

RH: Rapidly diminishing carrying capacity could be one answer. [Carrying capacity is the maximum number that can be supported by an ecosystem. ed.] When I first went to Costa Rica in 1951, there were about 700,000 souls in the country, of which some eighty percent was in forest. Today, more than three and a half million people reside in an area about that of West Virginia, of which less than fifteen percent is now in forest. Furthermore, the majority of these people want good paying jobs which will permit them to achieve the good life, complete with cars and TV sets.

I am proud that I was the vice president on the board of directors of the Asociación Demografica Costarricense, the first family planning program in Costa Rica back in the early 1960's. At that time Costa Rica had arguably the highest rate of population increase of any country in the world, and a small group of us hoped to do something to rectify that situation. We even contacted Archbishop Rodriguez, who we believed might be sympathetic with our aims, to tell him what we wished to do. He told us that so long as we did not force his hand, to go ahead. History, however, has shown that despite these and other efforts, Costa Rica's population kept right on going up.

Added to local population increase is the influx of outsiders. This past year, more than 35,000 Nicaraguans came into Costa Rica because they were convinced they could liver better, even under miserable conditions in Costa Rica than in their own country.

Coupled with this population pressure, Costa Rica has one of the highest per-capita debts of any country in the world. Much of this has been for good causes: they have, for example, excellent medical services up and down the line and are keeping more people healthy and alive than before. But eventually they are going to have to pay off the loans they made to build hospitals, roads, and schools. The only way Costa Rica can accomplish this is by producing more from the land. The country has few minerals; no petroleum, not even bauxite for aluminum. The only source of income is thus from Costa Rica's natural environment through agricultural and forest production or from ecotourism. But if the forest is cut for agriculture, it is lost for ecotourism.

ER: I'm surprised Costa Rica has seen its population increase so fast.

RH: This business of human population pressure on resources is one of my key bugaboos right now; I am beginning to blame population as the cause of all our major problems, including what is happening in places like Rwanda. I am convinced there are too many people there. Even when others say to me, "that's too simplistic", I believe I have a point.

ER: Rresource exploitation is difficult to control when people have children to feed.

RH: That is correct and very few people in Costa Rica appear concerned. Large areas of forest have recently been cut in the northeastern corner of Costa Rica so the land could be planted to bananas. Migratory birds from the United States fly down to this region for the winter. After they have flown across the Caribbean, they are tired and must eat. They used to come in and land in forests where there were plenty of insects or other food. Now the only place for them to land is on banana plants which are so heavily sprayed with insecticides that many of the workers in these fields have been seriously affected. The result is that there is nothing for the birds to eat.

A friend of mine who lives on a farm on the other side of the country told me, "Bob, eight years ago on our farm just inland from Quepos, I used to put out a large, hollow, split bamboo stem with thirty-eight bananas in it every morning which the birds would eat up in a single day. This year I put out only twelve bananas each morning and they are not all eaten by evening." We used to have orioles, passerine tanagers, and warblers; now we have few if any of these species and other bird tourists which used to migrate from the U.S. every winter. It is pathetic.

Down along the southwest coast - the Peninsula de Osa - the forest which the late Al Gentry said was one of the best there was, is now in serious jeopardy because of two major problems. The first is that there is gold there, even in the national parks and people are doing everything they can to get it. This is similar, albeit on a smaller scale, to northern Brazil where the struggle to get gold has resulted in the death of far too many Yanomami Indians and the excessive use of mercury for extraction purposes, which is polluting the environment and all that lives therein.

     The other matter on the peninsula is lumber extraction. The Stone Container Corporation - producer of fibers for paper and cartons - wants to put up a chipping plant there and cut down as much forest as it can, to chip up and ship out. It claims it will replace the natural forest there with a better one by planting the quick growing species Gmelina arborea and use that to continue to make chips. This is the tree species Ludwig used in Jari, Brazil, for the same purpose. [Ludwig, a German entrepreneur, lost one billion dollars over several years in a classical example of unsustainable agriculture. ed]
Although opposed by environmental groups in costa Rica, this entire program appears to be making good headway.
There is also a growing antagonism in Costa Rica between the bureaucrats who run the national parks and the ecotourism shows - those who tout quick-fix reforestation schemes - and those people who believe you should not cut any more forests.

ER: That contradicts the optimism of people I have talked to working for a more sustainable forestry in Costa Rica.

RH: Yes. Carl Leopold and his associates in the Tropical Forestry Initiative in Costa Rica have just purchased 125 additional acres to carry out this sort of work. Carlos Jinesta Urbini has even a larger farm in Orotina, where for many years he has devoted much effort to this sort of work and OTS has also established a native tree nursery. [OTS, the Organization for Tropical Studies, and educational and research consortium. ed.] However, after the director of OTS told me about their efforts and that the demand for their trees was excellent, I talked with many people I know in the Sarapiqui area, where the OTS station La Selva is located, asking them how many people were planting the OTS nursery seedlings. They knew of no one who was planting anything from the station and the only tree being planted in any number in that region was Gmelina.

Furthermore, most of this planting is done by people associated with large organizations like car agencies, banks and lending companies. They replant trees simply because the Costa Rican government provides a tax benefit to those who can demonstrate they are reforesting. The small farmer cannot afford to reforest. In the first place, at interest rates of thirty percent per year, it takes far too long to get one's money back, and furthermore, the ordinary farmer probably does not make enough to be able to claim a deduction from his tax.

Ticos are proud people and would like everyone to know that they are conservation minded and ecologically alert. But are they? That is my question. They are very good at public relations, particularly when the ecology relates to ecotourist income, so they try to let the world know how well they are doing, despite the fact that they are not doing well along many conservation lines.

ER: For Example?

RH: When I was in Costa Rica in 1994, I went to the central market in San Jose especially to take pictures of street vendors selling turtle eggs. This is an amazingly large business; quite out in the open. Yet the country almost brags about what it has done to protect turtles. Anyone can talk a good game, but when you see turtle eggs for sale everywhere you look, the evidence is most troublesome.

ER: Which turtles are you talking about?

RH: Ridleys and leatherbacks.

ER: Both species are protected?

RH: Yes. Part of the difficulty here is that even under protected conditions, dogs, coyotes and pigs roam the beaches to dig up turtle eggs to eat. Then when the baby turtles hatch and try to make it to the sea, other predators are waiting to eat them before they reach this haven. It is difficult for the turtles to make it even under these conditions. But when in addition to these hazards, they have to contend with people who systematically dig up eggs for human consumption without concern for the future, the overall problem worsens. The traditional place to have a turtle egg - believed to be an aphrodisiac - in Costa Rica is at a bar, just as in the U.S. many were accustomed to have oysters with a beer.

This trade in turtle eggs is taking place while ecotourists are led in large numbers to the National Park at Tortuguero - initiated by Archie Carr from the University of Florida, to protect the hatching area along the Caribbean beach in Costa Rica - or out to the Pacific beaches to see the arrivadas: the herds of females swarming in to lay their eggs. It is at this very time one sees eggs for sale on the street.

The troubling thing to me is that while the protest is made that too much forest is being decimated, the answer always seems to be "It doesn't matter because we are planting lots of trees to replace what is cut." This reforestation however, is almost always of single species planting, which is no different than planting sugar cane or African Oil Palm; single species plantings to not a forest make. A monoculture is not the sort of thing a real forester or environmentalist likes to see.

Another difficulty in Costa Rica is that little is being done about identifying the species which still exist under natural conditions before these are lost. There are quite capable people available to do this work in the National University in Heredia, or the National Museum and the University of Costa Rica in San Jose, but they do not have the financial backing they require. It is thus understandable that these researchers are jealous of foreign naturalists who, too often appear to wish to carry out work for themselves meanwhile ignoring local environmentalists. The best solution would be for a more cooperative effort on the part of those who are interested in the environment.

ER: How long before Costa Ricans realize they have too many people, they have deforested the country and some of their key natural resources are depleted?

RH: How much longer is it going to take in our own country? There are many ticos who lament these matters just as there are people here who are concerned about our destruction of our own environment. It is easy to get some well-known environmentalist to speak before a large audience. But when it is all over, the applause is usually the sound of one hand clapping - the other hand being put over the mouth to stifle a yawn, and any active effect is nebulous. We are left to ponder whether we can admonish Costa Rica about its environmental record when we are so blasé about our own.

During the hour and twenty minutes of the recent State of the Union address by President Clinton, the word environment was not used once. It is equally upsetting to note that when the Governor of New Jersey make her rebuttal of the President's speech, she too ignored this word and all it implies.

Literature Cited:

1) Is Costa Rica Truly Conservation Minded? Conservation Biology 8:592-595, 1994