Costa Rica is a country of great ecological wealth and human by its locating and physical characteristics. Al to be located between two continental masses, the north hemisphere and the south hemisphere, the country counts on a rich biodiversity of migratory resident, marine and, and continental species, as well as great quantity of endemic species TO human level, the situation was not different. Costa Rica has been the south border of Mesoamerica, as the north border of South America. Different aboriginal groups inhabited our lands, enriching their ethnic and cultural diversity.
Scientifically it has been shown that the country counts on more than the 5% of the species of the planet, in a continental territory of 51.100 square kilometers, the 0,1% of the surface of the land and a marine territory of more than 500.000 square kilometers. In a so small area 12.000 species of plants exist approximately that are divided into: 10.000 species of plants vasculares and some 2.000 species of plants not vasculares. The number of animals not to stops being less important, some 300.000 species of insects they exist, 848 species of birds, 237 species of mammals, 218 species of reptiles, 143 species of amphibians, 130 species of continental fish and some 800 species of marine fish in the Pacific and some 500 species of marine fish in the Caribbean.
This cultural and ecological wealth always formed part of the social, economic, and political development of the aboriginal groups. Their philosophy and vision of the cosmos and of the world they were supported in the natural phenomena.
It is from the arrival of the Spanish conqueror that a quantitative and qualitative transformation of the cultural and environmental bosses of the country is initiated. First, by the interest of the Spanish monarchy to consolidate its economic power and politician to second and international level, to exploit the human and natural resources that would contribute to consolidate its empire. During the colony, the situation was not different since the bosses of administration they were maintained and exploitation of similar resources to the of the conquest.
It is with the introduction of the coffee, that the country is consolidated like Republic and a new phase in the national history is initiated. The natural ecosystem to an agroecosistema is transformed, where they combine species of trees of the costa rican flora with the plants of coffee. The artificial forest was composed mainly of legumes that not alone they gave shadow al coffee tree, but they introduced nitrate al I am used, product of the bacterial transformation. A vegetable cover or mold on the ground, was also splits important in the formation of nutrients in the old coffee plantations. Nevertheless, from the decade of 50, the agroecosistemas traditional of the coffee change for plantations with little vegetable cover or by plantations exposed al sun. This change, brings as consequence the introduction of agrochemicals, like fertilizers and pesticides that cause a negative impact al environment by its indiscriminate use. Another serious contaminant is the launch of brush and honeys to rivers and streams of the Central Valley, product of the prosecution of the coffee.
The activity banana plantation was another factor that transformed the costa rican ecosystem. During the construction of the railroad to the Caribbean zone thousands of hectares of humid tropical forest to foreign companies for the exploitation of the banana were offered. Years later the expansion was increased to the zone of the Pacific Central and South. Currently many of the old zones banana plantations were abandoned by exhaustion and accumulation of copper in the floor. The use of agrochemicals without the control and adequate regulations, produced the massive sterilization of six thousand banana workers in the zone of Cold River, province of Heredia. This case is discussed today in a Federal Cut in the state of Texas, United States. The workers and their lawyers charge you add abundant to the companies banana plantations, like compensation by the damages produced in their reproductive system.
As consequence a group of costa rican worried about the national ecosystems, presented an unprecedented judgment before the International Court of the Water in the year of 1992. Said court was promoted by the government of Holland, with the endorsement of the European Union and the international scientific community. The results of the judgment were of great significance for Costa Rica, every time that the first ecological jurisprudence set against a business is established transnational banana plantation.
During the decade of the years 50 another activity is introduced not less damaging than the banana, the extensive stockbreeding. The extensive stockbreeding was the responsible for the destruction of more than the 60% of secondary and primary forest to national level and a rate of deforestation of 60.000 hectares per year. Is the extensive stockbreeding the responsible for the erosion of millions of tons of productive floor and of the disappearance of the habitat of great birds species quantity, insects and mammalian. The extensive stockbreeding also contributed to that many peasants emigrated from the field to the city in work sources search. The proliferation of satellite cities around the metropolitan area is growing and many families live in the extreme poverty, with serious problems of delinquency, epidemiological and síquicos.
Another serious problem is the contamination of the superficial water and subways in the main hydrographic basins of the Central Valley. Thousands of metric tons of fecal matter, besides the residues of the coffee, they are rejected without any processing to these rivers. Recently infected-contagious illnesses have proliferated like the fever, the malaria, the measles and the rage that would be able to be related to the contamination of the water. Neither no control on chemical compounds exists like heavy metals, detergent, agrochemical and other composed highly toxic. It has been determined that the chemical and fecal waste that are transported for the water network of the Large one of Tárcoles, they are placed for marine currents in the Gulf of Nicoya.
Situation that has caused a decrease in the fishing and a serious economic conflict for most of the fishermen of the zone of Puntarenas.
Daily thousands of metric tons of trash in the Central Valley are produced. The problem is so serious since the representatives of the Executive Power and the city Halls have not given a scientific-technical answer to the administration and management of the solid waste. A refusal on the part of the communities exists today to accept the sanitary backfill in their communities owed the bad employed procedures by the authorities and the private interests that are handled behind of this situation. In many cases, the solid waste are launched to rivers, lots and ways of communication, producing a serious landscape, esthetic impact and of health.
The use without control of agrochemicals contributes to the contamination of other zones of fishing in the country. It is as well as great quantity of coral reefs in the Caribbean coast they have disappeared by contamination of insecticides and pesticides utilized in the plantations banana plantations, to putting an end to the 75% of the coral reefs located al south of the river the Star. Al to be eliminated the reef, the fish has diminished considerably and many fishermen of Cahuita, Old Port and Manzanillo they have been damaged for the destruction of these marine ecosystems. Besides, the construction of the spring of Lemon altered the state of marine currents, causing the erosion of the seaboard and the sedimentación of particles in the colonies corallines. Another factor that has altered the zone of the Caribbean, is the growth and disorderly construction of hotels and dwelling Old from Port to Manzanillo. Laws have been violated that regulate the construction in refuge of wildlife, native reserves and the terrestrial maritime zone, all for lack of administrative ethics and environmental controls to whom the law obliges.
In the Peaceful coast the situation not to stops being less serious. Hotels in all the are built seaboard without the adequate protection of the seaboard, the dealers owe millions of Columbus al been by right of occupation. Neither an evaluation of environmental impact is required before offering the permission of construction. The national beaches became places of difficult access for the costa rican.
The river Tempisque, main source of water in the province of Guanacaste, suffers also the impact of the contamination produced by insecticides originating from zones algodoneras, rice and cattle raisers.
In the last thirty years large changes in the social, administrative, and legal system have been gestated to protect the environment. They are born the first groups ecologists and the areas protected are created throughout the country. Today the national parks are found in a serious financial and administrative crisis, in spite of the fact that private companies exist that generate millions of Columbus with the resources of those areas protected. Nevertheless, it is because of the discussion of the geothermal project of Miravalles, proposed by the Committee of Defense of the national heritage in the Legislative Assembly, that the urgent need to introduce in the Political Constitution be planted an unique title of Environmental Guarantees, the creation of a constitutional law of the Environment, the establishment of a Commission of Environment in the first one to be able of the Republic, as well as Environment, capable administrative agency to set ecological politics to national level.
Currently many of these projects already are laws of the Republic, thanks to the fight that distinguished costa rican they carried out on behalf of the environment. Besides, it was incorporated in the Political Constitution (art 50), a first paragraph on the right to a healthy environment, the responsibility of the State to guarantee, to defend and to preserve that right, as well as the popular action.
The amendment al article 50 of the Constitution, the ratification of diverse covenants and international treaties in environmental matter, the establishment of the constitutional law of the Environment, the Law of wildlife, the Law of Biodiversity and the creation of the Department of the Environment are part of the great legal-administrative transformation that experienced the country to ends of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, these rights, you owe and obligations that has the State and the company they change very slowly and the environmental problems (water, air, energy, wildlife, marine and terrestrial, mines and urban growth) enlarge in many cases exponentially. Neither the government, neither the private enterprise, neither the majority of the non-governmental organizations, neither the company have given answers and forceful solutions to so serious situation.
Therefore, it is fundamental to include in the Political Constitution a title of Rights and Environmental Guarantees that respond al public interest and that of a concise and clear answer set against the tried free commerce. In synthesis, so that the ecological rights properly are protected for the Resource of Protection and the Action of Unconstitutionality, as fundamental rights that are. So that Costa Rica become the first country in the world with a Title of Rights and Environmental Guarantees and of the example al concert of nations in environmental matter. So that the citizen and the company include an efficient and agile instrument to protect the environment and to establish a new ecological order in Costa Rica and in the remainder of the nations. Assure him the human beings and to the other species, the life and existence in the planet Land.