The president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, today signed a decree that facilitates the development of mariculture in a sustainable way to generate opportunities for producers in coastal areas and reactivate local economies.
The instrument, also signed by the Minister of Environment and Energy (Minae) Andrea Meza, develops a regulation that allows establishing routes for specific procedures, considering for the first time the family scale within the categories analyzed by the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (Setena).
Called General Guide for the assessment of the environmental impacts generated by the Mariculture activity and forms by category, for the aquaculture and mariculture sector, that allow to promote these activities as an export alternative.
The Minae points out that it allows companies, associations, cooperatives and individuals to have a clear guide that explains what the specific and unique requirements are to follow, a defined time for obtaining and environmental monitoring in accordance with the reality of marine aquaculture.
Likewise, it defines that smaller-scale projects are evaluated proportionally and not with the same terms as an industrial project.
Meza said that the use of marine resources should be carried out within the framework of a model that promotes benefits for coastal communities and the health of the ocean.
