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Environmental
Court Orders Restoration Of Damage At Palo
Verde Park
Costa Rica Jungle
Featured on NBC Entire Month of June
Environmental
Court Orders Restoration Of Damage At Palo
Verde Park
(InfoWebPress) – The Administrative
Environmental Court (TAA) is giving the
government one year to stop and repair
damages caused to 3,000 hectares within the
Palo Verde National Park in Guanacaste,
which has been declared as a Ramsar wetland
of international importance.
The TAA ratified last week its approval to a
conciliation agreement entered into by the
Agrarian Development Institute (IDA), the
National Irrigation and Subterranean Waters
Service (SENARA) and the Arenal-Tempisque
Conservation Area of the Ministry of the
Environment. The latter had sued IDA and
SENARA for flooding a sector of the park as
a result of irrigation channels and other
works done to bring water to sugarcane and
pineapple plantations on IDA-owned land
contiguous to the protected area.
The case aggravated and the damage
continued, due to the fact that an
inter-institutional commission didn’t comply
with agreements and didn’t carry out any of
the actions mandated by the TAA in 2001.
Five years later, in 2007, and following
several studies, it was determined that the
flooding had affected almost 3,000 hectares
in the areas of Bocana, Nicaragua,
Corralillo and Quebrada la Mula, all legally
protected.
Also destroyed was a pochote tree forest
that is unique to the region, which was also
flooded. Also suffering was the overall
ecosystem and biodiversity of the park.
The Environmental Court was emphatic that
the problems in Palo Verde must be sold
immediately.
“There has been a real and incompetence to
solve a problem created by state
institutions. You could hardly beat such
example of institutional irresponsibility,”
the TAA wrote in its May 12 resolution.
For that same reason, the TAA rejected a
nullification request filed by the Procurer
General’s Office, which sought to have the
conciliation agreement thrown out due to
technical aspects. “The current heads of IDA
and SENARA are showing real willingness to
solve the grave environmental damage in Palo
Verde, and we won’t delay this conciliation
agreement anymore so that the work can be
done immediately,” said TAA President Jose
Lino Chaves.
All in all, nearly 3,000 hectares must be
restored and more than 30,000 trees planted
in the La Mula Biological Corridor — the
sector most affected by the flooding, which
in addition to destroying its ecosystem
facilitated the growth of the invasive plant
Typha. To repair the damage, the defendants
will need to build a 6-kilometer-long
channel to help drain the water out of the
flooded area, and another channel will have
to be expanded in the buffer zone of the
Tamarindo settlement. Additionally, IDA will
have to transfer pending parcels of land to
Palo Verde.
The conciliation agreement included a total
of 16 actions that must be executed within
the one-year term indicated by the TAA,
which will monitor the work every month. The
Court also ordered the formation of a
follow-up commission, and the parties
involved were given six months to draft an
“Integrated Management Plan for the La Mula
Creek Mini-watershed” in Palo Verde. This
plan must show details about the budget with
which IDA and SENARA will execute the 16
actions of the agreement.
“The important thing is that every
restoration action is implemented to the T,
regardless of the cost, and we will make
sure this becomes a reality,” said Judge
Yamilette Mata, vice president of the TAA.
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