Costa Rica News – According to Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy, out of the 710,000 hectares of protected area in the country, 8% are still owned by private parties.
The amount has increased quite a bit in recent years.
The parks with the most land in this situation are Braulio Carrillo, Arenal Volcano and Alberto Manuel Brenes Biological Reserve. The last two have more than 45% of unpaid land.
In the last few years, new territories have been included and interests keep accumulating.
It will take more than a century to pay for this since the annual government budget is only ¢1.000 million.
Edgar Gutiérrez, from the Ministry of Environment, has stated that legislators keep creating protected zones without taking into consideration the budget to pay for them, worsening the situation.
