The Costa Rican Constitutional Court (Sala Constitucional or Sala IV) sentenced the country’s authorities for the supposed abandonment of the National Parks.

The sentence, dictated back in September 22 grants the Government a term of 5 years to take the necessary actions to resolve problems such as: the traffic of live animals, the contamination of the rivers, the lack of or damaged basis service infrastructure, visitor’s insecurity, among others.

The constitutional appeal (Recurso de Amparo) was filed by environmental organizations and activists against the Ministry of Environment, the National System of Areas of Conservation (SINAC), the Treasury (Hacienda) and the Comptroller General, claiming that the limited resources that exist to provide services to the 166 wildlife protected areas have allowed illegal practices to take place, such as logging, the extraction of gold, hunting, fishing, and other irregular activities that include the existence of marijuana crops.

Out of the 166 protected areas, 25 National Parks and 7 wildlife refuges together receive 96% of the annual visitation; just last year this translated into 2.1 million tourists (between national and foreigners).

The Constitutional Court declared the claim as partially sustained and in the resolution 2017014907 judges conclude that “there are sufficient elements to prove that the wildlife protected areas require an intervention of the respective authorities”.

According to SINAC “the sentence reflects the current situation especially for the year 2016; a lot of the elements established here are shared by this administration”.

SINAC also confirmed they have been working on improving the conditions in several national parks; however, the work done deems insufficient.

It is estimated that in total the protected areas require at least another 800 park rangers and also vehicles or maintenance of the same, fuel and ranger stations.

Investigator and historian Mario Boza, who is considered one of the “fathers” of the national parks in Costa Rica, stated in an interview with daily La Nacion “We find a situation with two very different faces. On one hand, the Costa Rican Tourism Board sells Costa Rica as a green country, with, supposedly, excellent national parks and reserves, and, of course, abundance of wildlife; on the other hand, we find these protected areas are abandoned, uncared for, unprotected and without any resources despite the amount of money they produce; so we say one thing, but the reality is very different”.

“According to official data the country obtained approximately US$4billion last year from tourism; and according to data by the Costa Rican Tourism Board , the Ministry of Environment and the Central Bank, in 2016, 66.6% of the visitors stated that the main reason to visit the country was Eco-tourism and the protected public areas. Based on these we can estimate that our national parks and reserves contributed over US$2billion to the economy of the country, data that proves the importance of our protected areas, but it also proves that we are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”, concluded Boza.

The Minister of Environment, Edgar Gutierrez, also in an interview with La Nación, confirmed that when he initially took over the ministry, a lot of the funds generated by the protected areas were being used to cover expenses such as salaries, situation that under his administration has been corrected. According to Gutierrez, the protected areas are NOT in abandonment, and just the contrary, they have allocated funds and made big investments in 10 national parks, including Manuel Antonio, Rincon de la Vieja, Caño Negro, Corcovado, Tortuguero, to mention a few. “We also have to consider that there are a small group of protected areas that receive the majority of visitors, and those funds have to be used to maintain ALL the protected areas”.

Gutierrez also affirmed that after a previous order by the Constitutional Chamber regarding the necessary protection of Corcovado National Park, the Ministry of Environment along with the Ministry of Security have taken measures to increase the surveillance, and these have already given positive results by even taking apart drug trafficking operations that were conducted within the park.

The Minister confirmed that he found practices and situations that obstructed their work, but, he insists, that this is something they have corrected in great part and are still correcting; the most urgent need, to his criteria, is to give SINAC more flexibility and have more personnel available. He insists, there is NO abandonment, and confirms that improvements in the different national parks are there for visitors to enjoy them, “there is still a lot to be done“, he concluded.