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Manatus Hotel in Costa Rica is proud to bring you today's blog:
In Costa Rica, excessive paperwork due to political decisions and actions make it almost impossible for entrepreneurs to have access to the benefits for sustainable forest management and the development of forest plantations.
This is what 50 experts, researchers, academicians and entrepreneurs from the sector who participated in a workshop determined.
The workshop was organized by the Tropical Agronomy Center for Investigation and Learning (Catie by its initials in Spanish) and the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS by its initials in Spanish), under the auspices of the Costa Rica-United States Foundation (Crus by its initials in Spanish).
The deputy minister of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications, Jorge Rodriguez, acknowledged the excess of requirements and called for the country to urgently define how to combine conservation and development.
Costa Rica maintains the system of benefits called “Payment for environmental services.” It is funded with money from the oil bill (about 3.5% of the total), international loans, donations and voluntary contributions from businesses.
To obtain the benefits, you are required to meet a series of requisites. Moreover, the Administration agreed to stop granting them for the sustainable forest management but kept them for the plantations in 2002.
The situation caused a decline in forestry activity which forced the country to import a little over 50% of the timber that it requires, for which it must pay about $95 million USD annually.
The purchases abroad are made despite the fact that Costa Rica has all the conditions and competitiveness to supply all the volume of lumber it needs.
Ronnie de Camino, deputy general director and chair of the Latin American territorial forest management for Catie, warned that the country also has adequate laws and programs.
However, the implementation of such legislation in the institutions virtually prevents the development of plantations and controlled handling of the forest.
This situation has the country in an “administrative closed season” or institutional and not legal ban to exploit forest timber and which totally discourages plantation development, warned de Camino in his report.
“If rice, sugar, beans and other food producers had to face red tape equal to what the forest sector faces, Costa Rica would be obligated to import all its food,” said the Catie specialist.
According to the projections made in the document, Costa Rica must import more than 60% of the timber it will need for 2010, with an investment of $ 126 million.
Preliminary figures indicate that over the past year Costa Rica had to import 637,826 cubic meters of the 1,154,697 cubic meters of lumber it used. By 2010, import requirements will reach 738,425 cubic meters, with a total demand of 1,225,374 cubic meters, according to the projection.
Deputy Minister Rodriguez explained that importing the product is not entirely negative. You would have to define the reason why the lumber is imported and what the cost is. He said that many of the imports are timber for construction and while the country imports it at USD $250 per cubic meter, there are some companies that export the finished product for up to USD $3,000 per cubic meter.
Rodriguez admitted an excessive wariness on behalf of those who grant permits. “Cutting down a tree is almost a mortal sin,” he acknowledged.
The whole team at TicosLand.com is in agreement with the processes of forest protection, but as we have said on other issues relating to procedures in the country, we need to have more agile processes to allow greater growth for Costa Rica.
You are welcome to read more about Costa Rica and Ticosland.com in our internal blogs and forums.
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