Campaign For Nature

December 17, 2021
Seeking to protect one of the most biodiverse waterways in the world from industrial fishing, the Costa Rican government announced today it is expanding Cocos Island National Park by 27 times. The waters surrounding the tropical Pacific island teems with wildlife, including sharks, rays, dolphins, turtles and whales. 

The government also unveiled the Bicentennial Marine Managed Area, twice the size of the expanded Cocos Island National Park, which will include some no-take areas and strengthen fisheries management. The expansion of the Cocos Island National Park from an area of 2,034 km 2 to 54,844 km 2 and the Bicentennial Marine Management Area from an area of 9,649 km 2 to 106,285.56 km 2 expands the country’s protection of its ocean from 2.7% of its waters to approximately 30%. With these marine protected area expansions, Costa Rica is leading in its global ambition and drive to achieve the global goal of protecting at least 30% of the planet - land and sea - by 2030. 

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Project Syndicate

November 17, 2021
Costa Rica is celebrating 200 years of independence this year. It is an opportunity to honor our ancestors and think about our descendants, and we invite the world to celebrate with us. Those who cannot visit in person should do so by protecting the Earth’s land and oceans, the source of all life. 

Specifically, governments, businesses, communities, and individuals should commit to conserving at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. Scientists have determined that this “30x30” goal is the minimum level of conservation needed to prevent a catastrophic loss of nature and to stem climate change. 

But 30x30 will not happen by itself; it will require time, attention, and money. Economists estimate that achieving this goal – by conserving the world’s most important intact wild areas and restoring crucial degraded habitats – would represent less than one-third of the amount that governments spend on subsidies to activities that destroy nature. It is encouraging that nine major philanthropic organizations recently pledged $5 billion to the 30x30 effort, the largest donation to nature in history.

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La Nación

January 11, 2021
Este lunes 11 de enero de 2021 será el lanzamiento de la Coalición de Alta Ambición para la Naturaleza y las Personas (HAC, por sus siglas en inglés), iniciativa que busca proteger, como mínimo, 30% de las superficies terrestre y marina del planeta de aquí al 2030.

Se trata de una iniciativa enfocada en el secuestro de carbono, para salvar especies amenazadas, la cual es liderada por Costa Rica y Francia, con el Reino Unido como aliado en temas marítimos.

El proyecto será presentado en el marco de la cuarta edición de la cumbre One Planet Summit, organizada por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), Francia y el Banco Mundial.

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Delfino

January 11, 2021
The Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Asociación Costa Rica por Siempre launched the first Latin American fund aimed at financing sustainability in the long-term conservation of the 30x30 goals.

30x30 goals? It is an initiative led by the governments of Costa Rica and France, and co-led by the United Kingdom on ocean issues, for countries to protect almost a third of their territories before 2030.

The " Forever Blue Fund " will initially be endowed with $ 3.5 million and will be managed by the Costa Rica Forever Association , a non-profit organization with more than ten years of experience in environmental issues.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

September 29, 2020
This year has revealed the extent to which nature underpins our human health, security and prosperity. The warming climate and rapid loss of biodiversity is sounding a planetary emergency alarm.

Our encroachment on nature has unleashed a global pandemic this year and a resulting economic crisis, while people around the world are facing ravaging forest fires, extreme weather events, droughts, record heat waves, rising sea levels, ocean degradation, air pollution and looming food insecurity.

The global community must act urgently and decisively. There is no single solution to the emergency - we will need to undertake systemic transformation of our economies and our societies.

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Santa Barbara Independent

August 27, 2020
In the 1960s, Costa Rica had one of the highest population growth rates in the world at almost 4 percent. This caused major concern among demographers. Through changes in policy and education, the rate has steadily dropped until today it is slightly below 1 percent, less than replacement level.

On another front, Costa Rica has similarly achieved a remarkable turnaround. In the 1940s, 75 percent of the country was covered in rainforest, cloud forest, and mangrove. Over the next 40 years, more than half of all trees were logged; the country had the highest deforestation rate in the American hemisphere in the ’70s and ‘’80s. Starting in the 1990s, a forest conservation and restoration program was initiated based on the strategy of valuing forests by paying for their services, known as Payment for Environmental Services (PES).

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Lavanguardia

February 27, 2020
The Vice Minister of Environment of Costa Rica, Pamela Castillo, present in Rome on the occasion of the UN biodiversity summit, said there is a "general consensus" between the participating countries to advance their proposal to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

In an interview with Efe, Castillo valued as "very positive" the atmosphere of consensus and "fluid conversation" in the first meetings of the signatory countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which this week in Rome prepare the framework document on biodiversity that will be ratified at the next October summit.

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