COSTA RICA

Olga Correa, like other longtime residents in the Ostional Wildlife Reserve, are refusing to leave their homes. (Photo: Zusha Elinson)

Zusha Elinson—Latinamerica Press.

7/23/2009

Poor residents near nature reserves face eviction.

Costa Rica´s natural beauty lures tourists by the thousands. But the country´s efforts to protect its famed natural wonders to draw ecotourism dollars is endangering some of Costa Rica´s poorest citizens.

Costa Ricans living along the Pacific coast are being forced from their homes to protect parkland or to make way for hotels and other development. Costa Rican law allows the government to evict people living within 200 meters (660 feet) from the beach. The law is being used to clear out poor communities that are either in the way of tourist developments or living inside popular nature reserves.

In the Ostional Wildlife Refuge — an 18 kilometer (29-mile) span of northern Pacific coast where tourists flock to see thousands of turtles come to lay eggs on the beach — three communities are being a threatened with eviction by the country´s highest court. The court argues their eviction will protect the park and the turtles that come there to nest, but longtime residents, like Olga Correa, refuse to give up their homes.

Correa, 42, has lived her whole life just a short walk from Playa Pelada, a pristine beach in the Ostional Wildlife Refuge. Her late grandfather, a fisherman and a farmer, settled in the area 63 years ago, long before it was declared a national park in 1983. But the Correas, and many others, have no legal title to the land they´ve occupied for decades.

“They want to get rid of us like a bunch of dogs,” said Olga, a cook who until recently ran a rustic seafood restaurant near her house. “But here is where I grew up, here is where my children were born, and here is where my parents died.”

A strong, stout woman, Olga tries to hold back her tears, before saying quietly: “Here is where they´ll bury me - here on the beach.”

Panic and outrage has spread throughout other communities in the wildlife refuge and all along the Costa Rican coast where pobladores – longtime residents who never bought the land – are being threatened by forced removal.

These pobladores have formed the Frente Nacional de Comunidades Costeras en Peligro de Extinción, an umbrella group of some 60 such communities. The group estimates that some 50,000 families nationwide could be in danger of losing their homes. Headed by human rights lawyer Wilmar Matarrita, the group has proposed a new law that would allow people to stay on their land.

“Everyone has a right to place to live,” said Matarrita. “These are poor people, humble people who live here – they´re not squatters.”  

The law that protects a 200-meter (660-foot) buffer along the coast, known as the Zona Maritimo Terrestre, was passed in 1977 to protect the country’s beaches. It declares the 50 meters (165 feet) nearest to the ocean to be sacrosanct, belonging only to the public, while the next 150 can be occupied only with a special permits.

In most of the country, local governments are in charge of enforcing the law. One of the most aggressive has been Alberto Cole, mayor of the Osa municipality, a lush area in the southern Pacific coast. In May, Cole ordered the demolition of a house belonging to Estela Aguilar Corella, a 60-year-old woman who had lived there for most her life. News reports of the elderly Aguilar returning to her house to find a pile of rubble and her belongings gone grabbed national attention. “All of the kitchen utensils, furniture, bed, all the clothing, all disappeared,” she was quoted as saying in El Pais newspaper.

Business first
At the same time, Cole had been actively promoting tourism development along the coast. He has come under fire for giving the green light to big tourism projects in the same protected zone to companies like Las Ventanas de Oso, a real estate developer known for building condos and luxury eco-resorts.  Cole did not return an email seeking comment, but told the Semanario Universidad newspaper recently that “the municipality is putting things in order and unfortunately there are people who don´t like that, but it´s my obligation to apply the law.”

There have been other demolitions along the coast, home to top surf spots and wildlife reserves. On June 21, residents of the northern Pacific town Punta Morales gathered for a somber mass in the very place that their small chapel had been destroyed by the government. Nine families had lost their homes there as well.

Matarrita and the Frente are hoping to put a stop to the evictions and change the way things are done along the coast by proposing a bill that give anyone who has lived there for five years the right to live on their land, to pass it on to their children, but not to sell it. It would give the coastal communities the power to govern themselves and the responsibility to protect the environment. It would also limit huge tourist developments. 

Some Costa Rican politicians have taken note of the movement. On May 21, people from up and down the coast, including Olga Correa, traveled hours on ferries, buses and trucks to state their case in San Jose. A dozen lawmakers signed on to launch the Frente´s bill. However, the same politicians claimed there was little they could do to stop any evictions for the time being because the local governments are simply complying with the law. 

And so while Olga Correa´s family and hundreds of others living in the Ostional Wildlife Refuge are hopeful about the bill proposed law, there is still great uncertainty about the future. The February court ruling ordered everyone to leave the refuge within in six months. And although the court made an exception for people who moved to the area before 1983 when the park was formed, few actually have the paperwork to prove it.

Political dilemma
The Environment Ministry is responsible for actually removing individuals from the wildlife refuge. But it has been reluctant at the same time as opposition has grown. The agency is now waiting on its own legislation that would allow people who have lived there for more than 10 years to stay in their homes.

“We want to protect the refuge,” said Laura Brenes, an Environment Ministry official. “But we are trying to make sure that as few people as possible have to leave because it would have a huge social impact.” 

Sitting outside her white and blue cinder-block house, Olga surveys the area around her. Behind her, there are the small homes of her children. Through the green leaves of the trees, she can see the ramshackle wooden houses with dirt floors where her neighbors live. And just beyond, the sound of the crashing waves.

“It´s like we are foreigners on our own land,” she said. —Latinamerica Press.

In December of 2008 in the community OSTIONAL, began a national movement to vindicate the dignity of about 50 thousand families in 60 communities that inhabit coastal areas and islands of our country.

On Feb. 12 in the presence of dozens of families from 7 Guanacastecas Communities, there was a mobilization where the (black) door from the Legislative Assembly was opened, to demand the justice be made to the Costarrican Coastal Culture. We demand the existence of a network of communities that have since historic times, inhabited a series of territory including the Coast, islands and some lands at the border.

We denounce that over time there have been implemented a series of public political laws that go against our historic rights.
In the majority of the cases, the institutions have taken advantage of our poverty and lack of knowledge and resources to defend ourselves, therefore forcing us to live illegally in extreme poverty by denying our right to a decent housing, electricity and drinking water. The laws and politics have supposedly been created with the function to protect
the natural resources despite the fact that in our culture it is our communities who are the main protectors of Nature.

We have examples of sustainable management that my be declared within the so called ”Wonders of the World”, the plan of harvesting the eggs of the Lora turtles in Ostional of Santa Cruz; the project of local sustainable Tourism and culture in Montezuma of Punta Arenas, sustainable Coastal Management of Deer Island are only three cases of some of our sustainability projects.

These politics and Laws attempt to go directly against our psychological, anthropological, historic, socioeconomic and cultural rights.

We announce that after diverse processes of organization and resistance that we have pushed forward all these communities to converge in the decision to create THE FRENTE NACIONAL DE COMUNIDADES EN EXTINCION.

In the same way we inform that we have presented before the ASAMBLEA LEGISLATIVA the bill to establish the LEY DE CREACION DE LOS TERRITOROS COSTEROS COMUNICARIOS (Coastal Territories of the Community).

On May 16, 2009, we deliver this bill to the deputies, but prior to this, in different occasions, we had solicited a hearing, with the proper protocol, with the President of Costa Rica to implement a Presidential decree to prevent the eviction of thousands of families living in the Coasts and islands of the
country.

Therefore in order to stop the possibility of a social conflict which would endanger the frail peace in Costa Rica. A request to do in Costa Rica something similar to what is happening in Honduras (negociate).

But after 2 months that we presented this bill to the deputies and countless requests to the e President, we have not received a clear answer to this situation.

This week, the principal leaders of the FRENTE DE COMUNIDADES have realized a tour of several coastal communities in Puntarenas, and with great sorrow in our
souls we have witnessed the anguish of dozen of women and men as they showed us the immediate eviction notices.

The community of MUELLE DE TAMBOR in Montezuma has been notified by the efficient Municipal Mayor of Cobano with dates for demolitions and evictions.

Although the management of this type: rural road lastreo, garbage collection, paving urban streets is a disaster, to whom is this Public Officer serving?

The community of Pochote Paquera has also been notified but to the unfortunate of these neighborhoods, they are in the e path of influence of the Mega Project BARCELO.

In the Communal assembly of Paquera we received testimony from the leadership of the community of Punta Morales of being beaten and assaulted by the Police and Municipal Officials of Puntarenas, which also raid homes and even the village
Catholic Church, but they didn’t touch Luis Roman’s mansion that has been built above the mangrove (located in the zone of the 50 mts from the ZMT).

We have spent our patience during these periods of several months and today we say THE TIME HAS COME, starting Monday July 13, we declare CIVIL DESOBEDIENCE
and proceed to implement relevant actions of protest.

We call the rest of the Costa Rican people; their organizations to proved the necessary support so the deaf government ruling class will listen and fulfill their duty since it is they the responsible party of our tragedy.

We request the immediate intervention by the DEFENSORIA DE LOS HABITANTES as well as the Costa Rican Church so that with their support contribute to the implementation of the justice for the neglected families.

The day Tuesday, July 14th we will be conducting the first National Strike in the location of Puente sobre el Rio Tempisque in the Nicoya Peninsula.

The same day, friendly officials and those committed to the Coastal Communities will submit a motion to integrate the SPECIAL COMMISION that will dictate the bill of the LEY DE TERRITORIOS COSTEROS COMMUNITARIOS.

A representation of community leaders will supervise who is really in our favor, at least on these issues.

In the same way we started the process of collecting signatures to submit the request for a RECALL REFERENDUM of all those Mayors and Governors enemies of the community who will soon know the lists.

FRENTE NACIONAL DE COMUNIDADES AMENAZADAS POR POLITICAS DE EXTINCION.

WILMAR MAATARRITA
Coordinador General

Articles I have read about the beach evictions ordered by the Costa Rican Sala Cuarto fail to emphasize the glaring marginalization of a group of people, namely poor Costa Ricans. Wealthy foreigners affected by the rulings to vacate beach areas have access to pricey lawyers who can figure out loopholes and avoid eviction. Formerly In Costa Rica, the rights of “squatters” to the land they occupied were legally protected. What has changed? The current situation is reminiscent of the US government’s historical breaking of treaties and usurping land from the Native Americans.

I have known Olgita, formerly the owner of “New Millennium Restaurant,” and Harry, her partner for many years. They are among the kindest, most generous, caring people I have encountered, embodying something of a true old Costa Rican spirit of sharing and helping whomever they can. It is well known that Olgita’s family has been living in Pelada for seventy years. Because her parents failed to get the proper legal documentation of ownership, Olgita, and her family along with about three hundred costal families in this area will be forced to leave their homes and land in August unless this unjust ruling for evacuation is overturned.

Those families without the required documentation are being expelled with out any compensation or provisions for relocation. The human tragedy of people being forced out of their homes is a disgrace to the highly praised humanitarian government of Costa Rica and should be exposed.

At a meeting at Olga’s Restaurant, Wilmar Matarrita, a Costa Rican Lawyer of Fede Agua is helping costal communities to organize and stop the eviction. He has drafted a law ensuring the following:

1) People who have lived in the Costal areas in question for over five years have the right to stay in their homes and land.

2) They are not allowed to sell their land or homes, but their children and their descendents have the right to stay there.

3) These residents given the right to stay are not permitted to sell their houses or land, only to continue living there. Only these people specifically have the right to live on these lands and no third parties.

4) The residents are required to protect the natural environment and live sustainably in harmony with nature. No buildings higher than one floor are permitted, nor large projects of any kind. 

It would be a great loss to remove the few real local people we have from the coast. Rather, I would love to see them empowered to develop healthy sustainable means to live on the land and support themselves sharing the rich cultural heritage they embody for the benefit of us all.