‘Fondo Azul por Siempre’ is the project with which Costa Rica wants to protect 30% of its national marine territory. In addition to saying goodbye to single-use plastics and proposing initiatives for tourists to offset their carbon footprint, Costa Rica has launched a project to protect its seabed by 2030.
$ 3.5 million is what it will cost the country to protect the seabed. Taking into account that the majority of its territory is marine, 92%, it is more urgent to do it as soon as possible. It is the first national fund in this sense launched by the government with the help of the non-profit organization Costa Rica por Siempre, which has been working on the protection of natural spaces for more than 10 years.
Strong coalition
The ‘Fondo Azul por Siempre’, as the project is called, responds to an intergovernmental initiative promoted by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, of which more than 50 countries are part and which is led by the governments of Costa Rica and France, and co-led by the United Kingdom on ocean issues, so that the countries protect almost a third of their territories.
“Our country has 6% of the world’s biodiversity. Maintaining the integrity of mangrove ecosystems, coral reefs and the seabed is crucial for fish populations,” said DW Haydée Rodríguez, Vice Minister of Waters and Seas of Costa Rica, in a statement.
The Spaces That Want To Protect Themselves
The program has four large marine protected areas: Cabo Blanco, Bahía Santa Elena, Montes Submarinos and Barra del Colorado, which have added more than 11,000 square kilometers to the map of protected areas in the country.
The main problem they must overcome is the fishing of endangered species such as the shark. For this reason, in addition to Costa Rica, this plan seeks to protect especially critical areas of the South Pacific. One of these places of great ecological value is Isla de Coco in Costa Rica.
More work to be done
For now, it has not reached the goals, since it is at 4% protection, but the government does not seem to stop its ambitious sustainability plans. In fact, they have set up a telephone for environmental complaints, they will also invest about 100 million dollars in sustainable projects led by women, as well as they have launched the Footprint of the Future campaign with which they want to plant more than 400 hectares before 2021 in the northern part of the country, most affected by deforestation.
“This effort was born with the certainty that it is a great moment to leave an indelible sustainable footprint and with the assurance that together we can face the challenges we currently have as humanity, such as the mass extinction of species, the climate crisis, the need for an inclusive economic recovery after the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, as well as the empowerment and autonomy of women,” explained the Vice President of the Republic of Costa Rica, Epsy Campbell.
