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La Nacion, December 7, 2007 – $87.5 million for forests – Costa Rica will invest $87.5 in the preservation of forests during the next five years. The funds come from three main sources, a $30-million loan from the World Bank, a $10-million donation from the Global Environmental Facility, and $47.5 million contributed by the Government of Costa Rica.
Currently, Costa Rica’s green cover is 51.4 percent of the territory, 25 percent of which is already made up of national parks and protected areas. There remains another 25 percent with the potential to be protected, according to official sources, and that could be achieved by paying environmental services to the current private owners of that land. http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2007/diciembre/07/weeklyreview.html
Well, it’s good to know that at least something positive may have been gained from the CAFTA approval (some monies were promised IF and only IF the CAFTA/TLC was approved by CR and these may be part of that agreement). However, it’s still not an awful lot of money at today’s land prices, only $10 million is a donation, $30 million are in the form of a loan which will need to be paid back or renegotiated by doing something else the World Bank wants CR to do, and I don’t know where the CR government will carve out the $47.5 million since they’re always telling the Conservation Areas that they have no money for such funding. Also, a lot of the areas already declared protected (to varying degrees) have yet to be paid for and these monies would probably be used first to address these before any further acquisition of lands for protection is made…However, it should help maintain already protected areas and hopefully add at least some environmentally sensitive areas to CR’s system of protected land….In the end, something is better than nothing at all and I’m happy for what this will mean to CR’s incredibly valuable, diverse and sensitive environments…
Additionally, a new $2 million incentive to produce organic pineapples
Pineapple growers are getting a financial incentive to produce exports that can be called “organic.”
The Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería said Monday that a deal had been signed to allocate $2 million toward organic pineapple production. Some $300,000 more is being directed to an estimated 400 smaller producers to improve their methods with technical assistance.
The vast pineapple fields have come under criticism for the runoff of agricultural fertilizers and sprays. Although all
pineapples are organic, the term is now used to describe products grown without added chemicals.The agreements announced Monday are between the ministry, the Programa Agroindustrial de Desarrollo para la Zona Norte y Chorotega and the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Ministry officials said that European markets have a preference for organic products, including pineapples, and that the investments would allow Costa Rican growers to exploit that niche. Some 80 percent of the production under the Programa Agroindustrial de Desarrollo goes to Europe, officials said. Just 20 percent heads north to the United States.
Next year the organization’s growers expect to export 1,800 shipping containers of their products. Each container holds 1,400 boxes of 12 kilos each or nearly 40,000 pounds of pineapples.
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