Cronyism in Venezuela and Costa Rica

…And in Really Bizarre News

By Jamie Douglas

Friends and fiends, some of the following may leave you wondering about reality, but I swear on the latest edition of Granma, that it is all true.

The Chávez Family in Caracas

According to the official news out of Venezuela, the Maximum Lider of that sad Bolivarian nation, Hugo Chávez died on March 3, 2013. But according to the people who were to embalm him for posterity, he had expired some time before that, as his organs had been rendered unsuitable for display-quality embalming due to decomposition.

Meanwhile, of course, the nation had to continue to be governed. Enter the infamous and (deliberately) incompetent bus driver Nicolas Maduro, who was handpicked by Chávez while he still had some marbles.

One would think that two of the Chávez family’s daughters would have vacated the premises in a dignified manner to relocate to one of the Chávez’s many country estates. After all, while the nation was suffering through one of its worst crises – shortages of food, inflation and the crumbling of its infrastructure – Hugo Chávez managed to steal at least a billion dollars, according to the Criminal Justice International Associates, while diverting another 100 billion dollars to cronies and criminal enterprises.

Perhaps the biggest blow to the Carcass in Caracas was that he was transported to his final resting place in an imperialist yanqui Cadillac. (A pretty old one I must say)

OK, so we know that Hugo has been dead for about a year. Now, we can report that two of his daughters have refused to surrender the presidential palace and are throwing wild and crazy parties there on a continuous basis, denying the new puppet president access to his (birth) right. Rosa Virginia and María Gabriela Chávez continue to occupy "La Casona" in Caracas, throwing big parties for their inner circle, costing tens of thousands of dollars, and continuing to live the corrupt lifestyle they were endowed with by their father.

Maybe it is time to remind them what happened to the Ceausescu family in Romania. Eventually, the people who have been screwed out of their heritage for so long will rise – and that could turn out very badly for Rosa and María.

The Chinchilla Family in Costa Rica

Meanwhile, Costa Rica’s lame duck president, Laura Chinchilla, must be getting ready to follow many of her predecessors into the corrupt nation’s penal system, probably along with a good number of her family members. This time, it involves the disastrous highway that was built along the Rio San Juan, along the border with Nicaragua. Not only was this highway built along the banks of the river, where the soft soil has already caused millions of dollars in erosion and cost overruns, but the whole project was built without any competitive bidding by a Chinchilla-family-owned outfit that had never before done anything of such magnitude.

It will eventually also be revealed what her secret trips to Colombia and Peru were about, when she just commandeered a corporate jet. (Cocaine maybe?)

But in Costa Rica, it is almost established custom for out-of-office politicians to meet in prison, where they have very comfortable accommodations. And when they are released, they still have all the loot, possibly moving to Panama where the administration of President Martinelli has held on to their ill-gotten gains for a small fee.

Jamie Douglas

At Large in South America

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Costa Rica Property Double Whammy

article from April 24, 2012

By Jamie Douglas

In May 1974, I moved down to the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica, in Dominical, at the mouth of the Barú River. It was summer still, the river was low and I was able to rent the only house within miles. Soon, the “Hey Gringo, you wanna buy my finca?” doorknockers came. I had become friendly with a few of the locals, and they all warned me not to buy in Dominical because the government had already advised them not to build anything within 50 meters of the high-tide line, and the next 150 meters would be considered public property, as well.

I could have bought all the land from the mouth of the Barú all the way south to Crazy Norman’s house for US$35,000 – a steal! Then the law was published. In most cases, beachfront properties are untitled because the ownership and possession of the shoreline is governed by the Ley Sobre la Zona Maritima Terrestre (Maritime Zone Law), which restricts the possession and ownership of beachfront properties. By law, the first 200 meters of beachfront starting at the high-tide markers is owned by the government. Of the 200 meters, the first 50 are deemed public zones and nobody may possess or control that area. On the remaining 150 meters, the government, through the local municipality, will lease the land by way of concessions to private individuals. Since virtually all of Dominical is located in the 200-meter range, I would have been entangled with various departments in Costa Rica for the next two lifetimes. Good thing I didn’t get involved, as multiple murders have been committed over the property both north and south of the Barú.

I had the money, but not the inclination. I did not go to Costa Rica to buy a finca. I was a nomad with no fixed destination, and it was the jungle and photography that had me by the tail. After about a year or so, I moved on to Panama (That was another adventure!) and then the Big Inheritance came, and another and another and another, and I was able to keep exploring the planet. Meanwhile, the civil war raged in Nicaragua and El Salvador, making Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala into US surrogate states.

Eventually, thousands of gringos moved to the area south of Limón on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and flooded the Pacific side with their surf resorts and yoga retreats, and naturally, Latin America’s least popular president is ready to cash in on all the gullible foreigners who listened to the “don’t worry about it” sales pitches.

So now, suddenly, comes the second slam of this double whammy. A few weeks ago, the Costa Rican government decreed that all of the land that had been granted to the aborigines, and was never to be sold to whites, not even Costa Rican whites, was to be returned to its original owners. Reaching back for decades, this decree is creating quite a bit of panic among all the people who bought land on the BriBri and the Talamanca, along with some of those Ticos who sold their jungle paradise for a few dollars or euros. There is an attorney general who, if she doesn’t get assassinated, will give all that land back to the indigenous people. It does not matter that they are the very ones who sold the land. All of the titles to indigenous lands are communally owned. I knew about those laws when I did a documentary in 1975 in the Boruca area. The cacique (chief) informed me in no uncertain terms that not a millimeter of their land could ever be sold to a non-Indian. Too bad they did not include all the natural resources.

So all those foreigners along the coastlines – Pacific and Atlantic – are likely in for quite an expensive fight. Costa Rica has become a more developed nation that does not need to sell its fincas anymore. They have an INTEL Microchip factory, one of which has powered this computer flawlessly for the past two and a half years.

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

[Image of Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica via Wikipedia]

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Trouble in Paradise: Nicaragua and Costa Rica

article from January 12, 2012

By Jamie Douglas

Nicaragua

These are interesting days for Nicaragua. President-re-re-elect Daniel Ortega was re-re sworn in in Managua, in spite of the constitutional prohibition against such an act. But like his colleague in Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, he now has established a legislative super-majority, which, for the good of that impoverished nation, will probably allow him to be president for life.

Silly me, I thought the reason that they got rid of the Somoza family regime was to avoid that from happening again. Next thing you know, the Ortega family will refurbish the former Somoza seaside palace in San Juan del Sur. At least he got rid of the rumpled army fatigues, a trademark he copied from Fidel Castro. Looking at his wife wearing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry for the inauguration, you would never guess that this is a socialist state.

Judging by the attendees present, which included Venezuelan Clown Prince Hugo Chávez and Iran’s flailing leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad along with most regional heads of state, it was quite a love fest, with the expected anti-American rhetoric. Chávez  called the United States “the lackeys of imperialism.” What an insult! The US is the imperialist, and most other nations are its lackeys!

Costa Rica

Notably absent from the festivities was the president of neighboring Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla. (Her name alone must give the heebie jeebies to members of PETA.) In referring to a useless sandbar in the middle of the San Juan River, Roberto Gallardo, the spokesman for the presidential ministry, clearly stated that “we have said that there cannot be normalization of relations with Nicaragua while the aggression and occupation of our national territory persists. Relations will return to normal, when the violation of Costa Rican sovereignty ceases in the area of Isla Calero.”

If “normal” means that supposedly neutral Costa Rica will repeat history by allowing a buildup of CIA and US military forces on its sacred soil to attack the neighboring country, which was the case with Honduras helping to bring about the deaths of 60,000 Nicaraguans along with another 75,000 in El Salvador, I, for one, am not looking forward to the normalization of relations between the two. Costa Rica has already given permission to the US armed forces to create a naval facility, as well as to use the CIA-built Liberia International Airport and “temporarily” house some of the US troops on their soil. But what the hell, they are the 53rd state already.

While Chinchilla is off attending to other foreign presidential inaugurations, (Guatemala) and vacationing in Mexico with her family, perhaps she should pay a little closer attention to the crime wave that is washing over her nation. Just over the last few days, several US and Canadian retirees and travelers were brutally murdered, while 360 kilos of cocaine were found on a truck heading to Nicaragua (Foreign Aid) and one ton of the Peruvian Marching Powder was dug up on a beach between the two popular tourist resorts of Quepos and Domincal. The stash of drugs on the beaches of Parrita was discovered through a tip; but instead of waiting to see who came to get it, the ministry of security turned it into a major press event.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the town of Quepos was just released on bail following his arrest for being one of the country’s major producers of child pornography. Mayor Lutgardo Bolaños was released a mere 12 hours after his arrest. Of course, no officials were available to comment on this.

Then there was the riot in La Reforma Prison that left two prisoners dead after 800 were given recreational outdoor time with the supervision of a mere seven guards. But it could be that they rioted because two separate woman were arrested trying to smuggle a cell phone with charger and hands-free device inside one, and a half pound of marijuana in another woman’s insides.

Then there was the story of the British man with warrants out from Interpol who was able to enter Costa Rica undetected, where he promptly raped and killed a 22-year-old Czech girl doing volunteer work on a farm.

Unfortunately, this is the current reality in Costa Rica, long a drug warehouse, but lately, things have only been deteriorating in this tropical paradise.

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Central America News Roundup Dec 15, 2011: Costa Rica Rains and Trade Relations, Panama Expat Murderers

article from December 15, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

Costa Rica: Rains and trade relations

Good news for our Tico friends: While you may get the impression that it’s raining all over the world, it is not raining here in Argentina; and regardless of your present dilemma, the rains will stop soon. But it is true that this last rainy season has eaten well into your current verano. If things go as they have in the rest of the world, you can expect a very dry, dry season. Keep your rubber boots and umbrellas handy for the time being, especially if you live over on the Caribbean side.

Even in regard Costa Rica, the United States is losing its hold on trade. With the US having treated the region like a giant backyard banana plantation for years without giving any respect to the area’s inhabitants, China has entered the Latin American market with gusto. After establishing itself successfully in the developing nations of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil and Argentina, China is now courting smaller countries like Costa Rica with massive loans on favorable terms to improve their infrastructure. The Asian Giant has just concluded negotiations to assist the small Central American nation with an upgrade of the Recope refinery in the Caribbean Port of Moín, offering US$900 million to finance the upgrade from a capacity of 20,000-25,000 barrels per day to 60,000 barrels. And as an additional insult to the gringos who built the original facility, the construction work is to be carried out by an Australian company. Total expenditures are estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.25 billion.

If it were not so tragic for American workers, it would be ironic. The Chinese are going all over the world, spending all the US dollars they acquired in trade with the US, looking like the benefactors of the developing world, when in fact they are just the latest reincarnation of economic assassins as they get these nations into incredible debt, for which China will receive valuable licenses to extract minerals as well as creating huge plots of monoculture soy plantations, all for export to feed their hungry masses.

Maybe these countries should look instead at the USA to grant some of their generous aid, perhaps transferring some of their transfer-acquired technology north to the land of the unemployed and starving masses. You know, the richest nation in the world, where one in seven residents is receiving what used to be food stamps. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the politicians who are responsible for this mess, and I mean all of them.

Panama: Expat murderers

Some of you living in Panama may have heard about that nice steroid-pumped neighbor in Bocas del Toro, a certain William Holbert, aka “Wild Bill,” and his gangster moll, Laura Reese. The couple admitted to murdering five expats in that small community without anyone there getting particularly curious about what happened to their neighbors. They were apprehended while migrating north to Nicaragua, where they planned on settling in San Juan del Sur.

Now, it turns out that there is another victim to their reign of terror, a US business owner by the name of Jeffrey Klein who, according to the prosecutor general in Chiriquí Province in Panama, was also murdered by the infamous criminals.

I have written about the dangers new expats face from established crooks who prey on newcomers, but this is a reverse situation where it was the established nice expats who were murdered by a professional criminal. Watch out for each other.

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Central America News Roundup Sept 22, 2011: Costa Rica, Panama

article from September 22, 2011

By Jamie Douglas

Costa Rica

The misnamed “Switzerland of Central America” (there is no such thing) is contemplating building an international jetport on the Osa Peninsula in the southwest part of the country. This is an ecologically sensitive area and one of the last regions to fall victim to tourism development. After having seen what the CIA-sponsored airport (I am not making this up) did to the overdevelopment of the Nicoya Peninsula and the mainland of the northwestern part of Costa Rica, one must question the sanity of those greedy government officials who operate out of the pockets of foreign land developers. Corruption is and has been one of this country’s overwhelming problems.

Meanwhile over on the Caribbean side of the nation, a shocking development for developers and agribusinesses: Judges in Goicecoechea ruled last week that the government will seize several hundred thousand hectares of land and return it to the Bribri people, who are part of the indigenous Keköldi nation of people of the Talamanca. What really makes this bite sting is that a lot of this land is near the very popular Puerto Viejo tourist area. The ruling is to compel the Agricultural Development Institute to expropriate the land and relocate any and all non-indigenous residents. This epic decision is based largely on the Indigenous Law of 1977, along with the presidential decree that established the Keköldi Reserve that same year. This established law states very clearly, “Land and property may only be traded between the indigenous residents of the reserve.” Judge Cynthia Abarca, president of the court, stated in an interview with La Nacion of San José that “the obligation to recover said land is sanctioned by international agreements, protecting the indigenous people’s rights. The lands have very special meaning for them, being places they consider sacred.” The government plans to appeal the decision.

A fiery Tica beauty, Johanna Solano from Heredia, made the country proud once again for its famously lovely ladies by placing in the top 10 at the Miss Universe pageant in São Paulo, Brazil. She is the current Miss Costa Rica, and will remain so until March 2012. Felicidades Johanna!

Costa Rica is also celebrating its independence from Spain 190 years ago. All the Central American nations except Belize tore themselves loose from the crumbling and broke Spanish Empire, and of course, that freedom did not come easily. The region has since been plagued with various dictators, despots and megalomaniacs, as well as an endless procession of civil wars. Costa Rica’s last civil war was fought for 44 days from March 12 until April 24, 1948. It is estimated that over 2,000 people lost their lives in that uprising caused by the country’s legislature voting to void the election results from February of that year. A rebel army, under the command of José (Pepe) Figueres, rose up and defeated the government of President Teodoro Picado in the bloodiest chapter of this tiny nation’s 20th-century history. After winning the revolt, Figueres ruled the country for a year and a half, wisely abolishing the army to keep history from repeating itself.

Meanwhile, on the narco front, Costa Rica managed to maintain its spot on the US State Department’s cherished blacklist of countries contributing to the illicit drug trade. Belize and El Salvador were just added this year.

Panama

Panama will have to exercise a little more patience until they get their hands on former strongman Manuel Noriega, the object of the United States’ affection in the 1970s and 80s. Noriega, a rogue CIA asset, was captured in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City in 1989 by George Bush’s invading army. Once again, like in Granada, the US went into a non-aggressor country and, according to UN estimates, slaughtered 2,500 civilians as well a number of members of the military, raking up an oft-mentioned figure of 4,000 dead, while the US forces numbered 23 dead and 325 wounded. Some surgical strike that was!

Manuel Noriega was to be returned to Panama from France, where he is currently incarcerated for money laundering. But French judges have held up the extradition because they needed more time to study the issue. Noriega has now been imprisoned for over 20 years, and I feel it is unlikely he will ever be released, as it could prove to be very embarrassing for the CIA-head-turned-US-president, George H. Bush, who is ultimately responsible for the crimes committed by Noriega. It sure would make for some very interesting reading if Noriega were ever able to publish his memoirs.

Ebrahim Asvat, a lawyer and activist for the voiceless masses of poor people in the country, is trying to get himself killed by attempting to have the law of Anati (National Land Authority) overturned. Laws and regulations have been no match for corruption in Panama ever since private land developers found out what a lovely country Panama is and how easy it is to get prime land for development by lining the pockets of everyone from the president down. Knowing how Panamanian “justice” works, I have no hope at all that he will prevail.

While on the subject of presidential corruption, it should be mentioned that President Ricardo Martinelli has declared that the Italian citizen wanted by the prosecutor of Naples for the extortion of a million dollars from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is welcome to stay in Panama. Berlusconi did not mind paying the money to protect himself from exposure in his underage prostitution “Bunga Bunga” scandal. Martinelli considers Valter Lavitola to be a very useful asset for Panama since, by giving him shelter, Berlusconi has become a major Panamanian benefactor, donating six patrol boats to the nation that are valued at close to US$300 million. Martinelli and Berlusconi also signed a no-bid sweetheart deal valued at $335 million for helicopters, radars and other assorted items.

Good news for film buffs: Panama will finally have its own world-class film festival in 2012, when it will host the International Film Festival April 11-17. The festival will be in the capable and experienced hands of the cofounder of the highly successful Toronto Film Festival, as well as those of Panama’s own Pituka Ortega Heilbron, a well know producer/director whose work includes a documentary about the life of famous pugilist Roberto Duran. Quiet on the set! And … ACTION!

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

Where that Fine Malbec wine is ever-present! Salud!

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.

Expat Life in Today’s Costa Rica

article from June 8, 2011

by Julie R Butler

Costa Rica, having been a popular country for expatriates from the US and Canada, as well as Europe for several decades now, is still a wonderful place to relocate to, despite the changes that have occurred through the years. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of retirement in Costa Rica today.

Standard of living

For North Americans, Costa Rica offers the advantage of being close by. And the stability that has allowed this nation to commit itself to social programs such as public education and socialized health care, however less-than-perfect these programs may be, offers everyone who chooses to live there the advantage that standards of living are relatively high, which means that problems that have their roots in abject poverty and social turmoil are reduced. Of course, this does not mean that problems do not exist there. But the possibility of lower costs of living in a spectacularly beautiful country that is not all that far away – just a few hours from the United States by plane – yet in a world all of its own, is a siren call that is irresistible to many.

I mentioned the “possibility” of lower costs of living because the truth is that the cost of living in Costa Rica is among the highest in Latin America. Many goods and services are now equal to or more expensive there than in the United States or Canada, particularly electricity (the price of investing in renewable sources), diesel and gasoline (all of which is imported), and other imports, including cars (high import duties). Costa Rica has long been plagued by the highest inflation rate in the region, plus the country has a widening trade deficit, exasperated by current high fuel prices and the high taxes that have been trying to keep up with the government’s large and somewhat inefficient deficit spending. That being said, it is still possible to live a simpler life with less spending by embracing the famous Costa Rican spirit of pura vida.

Pura vida

Utilizing green building techniques that emphasize low maintenance, local know-how, and awareness of the environmental; taking the opportunity to support the local community that low labor costs offer; buying locally grown produce or growing your own; eating healthy home-cooked meals with domestic ingredients instead of import brands; foregoing energy-sucking appliances like dryers and air conditioners; getting used to not having hot water on demand from every faucet in your home; not owning a car; needing less... all of these practice, most of which emulate the average Tico way of life, will minimize your living expenses.

Bureaucracy

Paradoxically, living the “simple life” in any Latin American country comes with a not-so-simple bureaucracy, and unfortunately, Costa Rica has managed to turn its residency procedures into an even bigger jumbled mess of complexity than ever before. The overall cost in US dollars of going through the process of gaining pensionado residency status appears to be about $1,000 per couple, although there will be other costs in terms of time and frustration, only to find that the submitted documents will take many months to be processed. Gone is the pensionado exemption on paying import duties on belongings brought into the country, and residents are now required to register and pay into Costa Rica’s socialized medical system.

The price of paradise?

So expatriating to Costa Rica is neither as easy nor as inexpensive as it used to be. Living there can be frustrating due to poor road system and other infrastructure problems. Theft and security is a serious issue to contend with, and living in a tourist destination has its drawbacks. Yet some consider all that to be a fair price to pay for the privilege of living in such a beautiful country that has a unique attitude toward at least trying to care about the wellbeing of both its environment and its citizens, and there are still many quiet places where nature’s peace and tranquility have no price.

see also (site appears to be up-to-date as of January 2014):

http://www.therealcostarica.com/residency_costa_rica/costa_rica_residency.html

[Image via Wikipedia]

Julie R Butler is a writer, journalist, editor, and author of several books, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger To Strange Lands (click here for more info). She is a contributor to Speakout at Truthout.org, and her current blog is Connectively Speaking

email: julierbutler [at] yahoo [dot] com, Twitter: @JulieRButler

A Brief History of Costa Rica

article from May 26, 2011

by Julie R Butler

Costa Rica is one of the most well-known and well-established expat havens of them all, having been, for several decades, a popular location for people who want to escape to the jungle and live among tropical birds, immense greenness, incredible beaches, and lush alpine regions, as well as take advantage of all of the benefits of a country that has been very welcoming to tourists and expats. Sometimes referred to as “The Switzerland of Central America” for being the most stable democracy in the region, Costa Ricans are better educated and enjoy a higher standard of living than any of their neighbors in Central America.

Of course, the moniker also fits the country because it is very mountainous and full of cows (however, they are more likely to be beef cows than milk cows).

The indigenous situation

Like in Uruguay (The Switzerland of South America – with cows, but no mountains), the number of people of pre-Colombian indigenous decent is presently a very small portion of the population, and their sparse number has played an important role in the development of the country. Costa Rica’s location puts it at the peripheries of the Mesoamerican world to the north, and the Andean world to the south, and because the Isthmo-Colombian culture that existed from Caribbean and Southern parts of Central America to northern Colombia were not organized into as sophisticated and densely populated civilizations as their neighbors were, they were easily sidelined by both the Spanish conquistadores and later anthropologists. Also like in Uruguay, the region that is now Costa Rica was of little use to the Spanish because of its lack of copious amounts of gold, silver, and indigenous people to use as forced labor for large haciendas, so it long remained a remote backwater of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. As history has progressed into the present, many of the social problems that are based on the marginalization of indigenous peoples that are common throughout Latin America have been another thing lacking in Costa Rica and Uruguay, which has been a factor in the ability of both of these countries to achieve the kind of economic and social progress that they have.

Post-colonial Costa Rica

Yet another lacking that has had a lasting effect on Costa Rica is a penchant for war. In this respect, the country is unique to Latin America, because (unlike in Uruguay) it avoided the chaos of civil as well as regional strife that most other nations experienced after independence from Spain was declared. However, Costa Rica was not immune to the social problems caused by a railroad baron along with the associated land grabs by the United Fruit Company and other foreign-owned corporations, which brought the importation of Jamaicans and Chinese as well as US convicts as poorly paid laborers.

Nor was Costa Rica immune, in the 20th century, to one military dictatorship and one coup d’état with an ensuing bloody civil war, which is what brought about the abolition of the military in 1948. This action is credited with the freeing up funding for other purposes that has helped things to go relatively well for the Costa Ricans, although tensions with neighboring Nicaragua have been persistent, and being a “developing nation,” there are still many social and economic issues facing the Ticos.

Economic development

For a quick look at its economic development, back in 1843, Costa Rica began exporting coffee to Europe. Then came the railroad link to Limón on the Atlantic coast and the banana plantations, then other tropical products such as pineapple, sugar, and lumber, as well as beef.

It was during the 1980s when the famed ecotourism industry sprung into being. Beginning in the 1990s, foreign investment in the country’s free trade zones has also brought jobs and export revenue from electronics, pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, and software development. However, despite such foreign investment, the official focus on education and a social security net, and the sustainable ecotourism movement, the poverty rate has remained stubbornly fixed in the area of 15-20% for nearly twenty years, according the CIA World Factbook, and some are questioning just how much the Ticos have really benefited from the influx of foreign visitors and businesses.

But Costa Rica – with its amazing biodiversity, its stunning national parks, its gorgeous beaches, backed by mountainsides covered in more shades of green than seems possible, its fiery volcanoes, verdant jungles, life-sustaining waterways, and world-class surf, its surprisingly pleasant climate, and its Pura Vida attitude – cannot fail to be an inviting and invigorating place for nature lovers, whether to visit or to stay for a while.

[Image via Wikipedia]

Julie R Butler is a writer, journalist, editor, and author of several books, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger To Strange Lands (click here for more info). She is a contributor to Speakout at Truthout.org, and her current blog is Connectively Speaking.

email: julierbutler [at] yahoo [dot] com, Twitter: @JulieRButler

Ecotourism, Green Tourism, and the Myth Thereof

article from April 4, 2011

by Jamie Douglas

First off, let me state unequivocally that I consider both the terms “ecotourism” and “green tourism” to be oxymorons in the league with “military intelligence.”

I am proud to say that I have never paid the extra 50% to the organizers of an eco-tour to make me feel better. Your feel-good ecotourism adventure likely starts out with a trip to the airport in a motor vehicle, and then it’s onto a jet plane, which deposits tons of carbon in the upper atmosphere, to be followed by a stinking diesel bus ride to your final destination, with a stay in a comfortable, air conditioned room topping off the orgy of carbon emissions your green vacation requires to get you there to supposedly make a positive impact on the local environment.

So now that you are in the neighborhood, there are all these wonderful side excursions you can take, powered by diesel bus or van, outboard motors, large diesel ship engines, helicopters and small planes contributing more than your share of carbon to the free and formerly unspoiled locales you have come to admire. Whether in the Central American rainforests or cloud forests like Costa Rica’s Monteverde, where enthusiastic entrepreneurs have constructed their platforms and strung steel cables through the jungle canopy so that people can go zipping through the treetops, building more and more roads and infrastructure in order to give more and more tourists access to delicate environmental regions is a strange way of protecting them. In Monteverde alone, there are dozens of companies that draw people to this remote location and operate with very little oversight from the Costa Rican government, as the almighty tourist dollar is the green currency.

A similarly sad situation exists in Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos, along the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. And on the Caribbean coast, as well as many other interesting locations in the world, you will find natural settings that are being exploited as “green tourism.”

Costa Rica has carefully created and groomed this eco-tourism myth by having a large percentage of its national territory designated as national parks, nature preserves and “Indian” reservations. The myth about it is that they have long looked the other way when it comes to gold mines, rare tropical wood harvesting and the neglect of the indigenous population. When it comes to enforcing regulations that give the appearance that the government is environmentally aware, it very often just doesn’t happen.

Back in 1975, I stayed with the Boruca people in the southern mountains of Costa Rica, collecting oral histories and taking many a photograph for a presentation when I had to leave suddenly due to a medical emergency. I did not return to the area until 1995, when I announced to my two traveling companions that once we reached the edge of the ridge and had a view into the valley where the reservation is, they would be astonished at the amount of pristine rainforest that they would see.

Well, what a difference 20 years made. Virtually all the old-growth trees were gone, replaced by banana plantations and mining scars. The formerly majestic river running through the valley had been reduced to a trickle, and the population of the village was a fraction of what it once was. Most of the youth had left to become maids, gardeners and, sadly, prostitutes in the growing tourist towns along the Pacific coast, which had also undergone an incredible transformation. The then-new coastal highway was allowing developers access to formerly isolated areas where they had begun building without regulation or regard, also bringing in an influx of drug traffickers that facilitated the transport of cocaine from Colombia to the USA and Europe.

The Osa Peninsula, home to Central America’s largest protected area of tropical wet forests, suffered from the continued looting of valuable timber resources while Canadian, Australian, and US mining interests had established themselves with impunity by paying the necessary officials off – those same officials who were also paid large sums of cash to look the other way when airplanes and ships came in for refueling. In the mean time, the local population of the Osa Peninsula was left behind as one of the most poverty-stricken regions in Costa Rica.

So is Costa Rica really an eco-paradise?

Costa Rica was at the vanguard of the “ecotourism” movement, which was no doubt initiated with the best of intentions. But today, with carbon trading being more of a feel-good excuse than a solution and the “green” image so easily taken advantage of by corruption and greed, we have to be honest with ourselves, thoughtful about our actions and ever more diligent about verifying claims being made if we really want to do what is best for the planet.

The better question might be, can Costa Rica actually live up to its green image?

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

I encourage you to write me at cruzansailor [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or suggestions you may have. Disclaimer: I am not in any travel-related business. My advice is based on my own experiences and is free of charge (Donations welcome). It is always my pleasure to act as a beneficial counselor to those who are seekers of the next adventure.