The battle in favor and against shrimp trawling continues in Costa Rica, the Constitutional Chamber (Sala Cuarta or Sala Constitucional) brought the intentions of the Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture (INCOPESCA) of issuing new trawling permits to a halt.

By accepting a constitutional appeal (recurso de amparo) presented by environmental attorney Alvaro Sagot against the government agreement to grant the permits, the Constitutional Chamber puts a temporary stop to the initiative which was ratified by INCOPESCA November 24.

Sagot, stated that the arguments offered by the Institute of Fisheries are insufficient; more so, they are disregarding the August 2013, sentence of the Constitutional Chamber 2013-10549, ordering the Costa INCOPESCA not to issue new licenses for this technique, nor to renew existing licenses. The sentence also stated that the only way to reconsider the possibility of allowing this practice would be to make the necessary changes and demonstrate through technical studies supported by the scientific community that the practice can be sustainable, something that has not happened.

However, INCOPESCA, the Ministry of Agriculture and President Luis Guillermo Solis are defending this practice and arguing that they are complying with what is dictated in the 2013 sentence.

INCOPESCA had already presented a bill to the Legislative Assembly to allow ocean trawling, seeking to demonstrate that the impact of trawling can be limited by using certain technologies and practices such as restricting the areas in which it is done.

The position of environmental groups as well as the Center for the Investigation of Sea Science and Limnology (Cimar) of the University of Costa Rica, the Ministry of Environment, Mar Viva Foundation, among others, is clear, there is no scientific evidence that demonstrate that the suggested practices and technologies actually reduce the impacts of trawling.

Gustavo Meneses, president of the Incopesca board of directors, justifies that there are 3,700 people that depend economically of shrimp trawling since there are 1,100 fisherman dedicated to this practice; however, tourism operators and artisan fisherman have also clearly stated their opposition to trawling. In October 2016, the School of Economics of the National University (UNA) presented a socioeconomic study of the semi-industrial shrimp trawling sector in which it showed that the practice only generates 590 direct jobs, of which 80 percent are of poor quality, and below minimum wage. Shrimp peelers earn on average 37 times less than license owners.