ACTION
ALERT
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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Help
Protect Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
11/15/97
OVERVIEW,
SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
One of
the center's of biodiversity in Central America is in spiraling
decline. The Arborea Project Foundation and
Rainforest Information
Centre
ask for your help with letters to protest the situation. If you
haven't
already, check out Rainforest Information Centre's web page
at
http://forests.org/ric/
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Help Protect the Osa Peninsula
Source: Arborea Project Foundation
Status: Distribute freely with accreditation to
Source
Date: November 10, 1997
COSTA RICA
Help Protect the Osa
Peninsula
According
to the Arborea Foundation, Costa Rica has the highest
deforestation
rates in Latin America. The country's Osa Peninsula
contains
the most biodiverse forests in Central America, and so it is
encouraging
to see that a three-month moratorium on further
destruction
in the region was imposed in August.
The following Action
Request
comes from Costa Rica's
Arborea
Project Foundation.
After
denouncing by all available means the fast and extensive
deforestation
in progress in the Osa Peninsula, the local ecologic
organisations
have seen their many years' efforts and sacrifices
rewarded
by a measure that, though incomplete and inadequate,
sanctions
the government's new awareness of the actual situation. The
destruction
of the rainforest and of the relevant ecosystems is the
normal
practice in Costa Rica, a nation that holds the lamentable
record
of being the Latin-American country with the highest rate of
deforestation.
Deforestation
in the Osa Peninsula is a particularly serious course of
action
because it affects an area blessed with the highest
biodiversity
in the whole of Central America. The suspension of any
felling,
handling and transportation of trees throughout the Osa
Conservation
Area for a period of three months as from August 16 1997
is once
again an insufficient and strongly demagogic measure, aimed at
securing
the approval of the conservation organisations in view of the
forthcoming
elections (February 1998). At the same time, such measure
is an
attempt to give an ecological tinge to an administration which,
in the
past four years, has certainly not distinguished itself for
sensitivity
and efficiency in the domain of conservation.
The
temporary stop to deforestation has the declared purpose of
enabling
the forces in the field to define an integral development
program
of the area, capable of reconciling the necessity of
maintaining
this natural heritage (unique in the world) with a
reasonable
degree of exploitation in favour of sustainable development
of the
civilian community. The best idea emerged during the
preliminary
debates has been the setting up of a sawmill run by a
consortium
of forest owners, thus enabling them to multiply their
profits
resulting from the felling of trees.
Knowing,
as we do, the Costaricans, we can only figure out that the
above
arrangement will result in a double felling = double earning
equation.
The
Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, called upon to assess the
parameters
regulating the felling of trees, has made an amazing show
of
demagogic shortsightedness by fixing a minimum diameter of 60
centimetres
for all 500 species of trees existing in the area. Not
less
ludicrous has been the method used for establishing such a
parameter.
Mr Juvenal Valerio of the Instituto Tecnologico de Costa
Rica,
the forest engineer charged with the above task, when questioned
about
the method, candidly replied "It's a size pulled out of my
hat!!"
So much for the extensive, time-consuming and expensive (for
society)
research implemented by the illustrious institute! Once again
we are
faced with a demagogic decision that covers up big
manipulations
and schemes devised for ensuring high profits to the 270
sawmills
of the country, with the purpose of authorising a disorderly,
wild
exploitation of an irreplaceable natural resource, with no
consideration
given to the times required for regenerating the
arboreal
canopy, the whole epiphyte system (such as orchids and
brolelias),
and of an endemic wildlife typical of the rainforest upper
belt.
What
You Can do
SAMPLE
LETTER ( Adapted by Rainforest Information Centre)
Al
Senor Ministro de Ambiente y Energia
Dr Rene
Castro Salazar
S. Jose
de Costarica
Fax:
+506 257 06 97
Your
Excellency,
I am
greatly encouraged by the news, given to me by the Arborea
Foundation,
that you have placed a moratorium on the destruction of
forests
in the Osa Peninsula. I congratulate you on this courageous
and
farsighted move.
However,
a three-month moratorium is by no means adequate to achieve
lasting
preservation of what will become an increasingly attractive
tourist
destination. Moreover, I view with some concern the decision
that
trees as small as 60 centimetres in diameter may be felled in
future.
This decision needs to be reviewed as a matter of urgency.
In view
of your commitment to the preservation of this area, I wish
you
success in the upcoming elections and hope that you are able to
continue
protecting the Osa Peninsula in the future.
Yours
sincerely,
Source:
Guiseppina Montanara - Guilio Ranalli
Arborea
Project Foundation
Boca
Taboga, Peninsula de Osa
Costa
Rica
tel:
+506 786 65 65
fax:
+506 786 63 58
http://www.greenarrow.com/travel/arbor.htm
Postal
address: Ap 65 - 8150 Palmar Norte de Osa, Peninsula de Osa,
Costa
Rica Italian address: fax: Mr. D. Cuppini +39 11 901 80 55
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