It’s Official: West Coast a Mess

By Leland Baxter-Neal
Tico Times Staff | lbaxter@ticotimes.net

The government is unable to control the booming growth of tourism and real estate development along Costa Rica's northern Pacific coast, and a lack of regulations and oversight is leading to environmental destruction.

This may not be news to environmentalist and activist groups, who for years have warned of overdevelopment, but it has now been officially echoed by voices within both the government and tourism sectors.

Two reports released in recent weeks – one by the Comptroller General's Office and another by the Costa Rican Hotel Association – criticize the government's handling of growth along the coast, particularly in the northwestern province of Guanacaste.

“There has not been a balance between the development of infrastructure on the national coastal areas and the protection of the environment, which puts the natural resources, the biodiversity and ecosystems at risk,” reads the Comptroller General's 2007 Memoria, a report the office is required to submit to the Legislative Assembly every year detailing the agency's work over the past 12 months.

The above is an article from the "Tico Times" in Costa Rica.

For those who believe Eco-Tourism can be a major income producing part of a countries economy, they should think again. At its very best it can be a niche market. Once it expands past that stage it no longer can be considered as Eco-Tourism. Broadening the demographic to make the product more accessable inevitable defeats the purpose.

Ecology is defined as that part of biology dealing with the relationship between living organisms and their natural environment. To my mind combining ecology and tourism (eco-tourism) is a misnomer. The introduction of tourism will completely alter the natural biological habitat. There will be a natural inclination of government to make it an economically advantageous part of the economy which can only be achieved by expansion past the niche concept, resulting in something akin to an ecological disaster. The west coast of Costa Rica is a perfect example. Well hidden until you deliberately look past the fancy Condos and Hotels. The destruction of Mangrove is on a huge scale, poorly constructed septic systems end up polluting rivers and estuaries. On some playas the sand has been replaced by silt and sh*t. There is just too much money involved for politicians to pay nothing more than lip service to complainants. Lining politico pockets is just part of the developers business model.

NGO'S that are currently fighting mining and endorsing eco-tourism will in 10 years or so be fighting the very thing that they are now advocating.