Today the Mesoamerica region has a population of approximately 127 million people - descendants of Europeans, Afro-Caribbeans, and many indigenous groups. Nearly half of Mesoamerica's people live in rural areas, where they depend directly on local natural resources. The sustainable management of these resources is compromised by small-scale subsistence activities and by major industrial activities, both arising from economic and social policies. Poverty and low levels of economic development lead to survival tactics that do not support conservation. Poverty is a major factor in hunting, illegal logging, archeological poaching, and illegal encroachment (squatting). The effect of poverty on sustainable resource management is noticeable in both Costa Rica, in areas such as Río Banano on the Atlantic side or the indigenous territory of Cabagra on the Pacific side, and in Panama, in areas such as Batipa and Chorega in the province of Chiriquí.
Root causes of threats to biodiversity in the region include:
- poverty
- ineffective law enforcement and administrative institutions
- strong incentives favoring extraction and forest conversion
- inadequate incentives favoring conservation
- natural disasters
Mesoamerica exhibits some of the highest deforestation rates in the world: from 1980-1990, deforestation averaged 1.4% per year - by some estimates, 2.0-2.5%. UNEP's State of the Environment Report finds that six million hectares of natural forest cover were cleared or burned each year from 1990-1995, resulting in degradation of 300 million hectares of forest. During the same period, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama saw annual deforestation rates of 2.3-2.5%. Today, approximately 80% of the region's original primary forest formations have been cleared or significantly modified. Many species of animal and plant are threatened with extinction. It is estimated that if deforestation continues at the current rates much of the last 20% of the region's forests will be destroyed during the first decades of the 21st century, leaving only remnants in parks and reserves - if indeed these can be protected adequately.
Deforestation in Mesoamerica is a result of interconnected trends in agriculture, poverty, land speculation, population growth and development policy. While the national governments of the Mesoamerica hotspot have declared dozens of new national parks and reserves in recent years, many of these areas remain poorly protected. Many of the region's parks, biosphere reserves, and wildlife refuges are also home to human communities, and deforestation and environmental degradation continue despite environmental protection laws. Some of these areas are too small to provide adequate protection to the full range of their biodiversity, and are vulnerable to outside threats, especially illegal squatters and poaching. In Panama, for example, only 149 guards are assigned to 14 national parks, leaving each guard an average 9,125 hectares to patrol.
Contradictory laws have made it difficult to carry out conservation management plans. In Costa Rica and Panama, new laws governing forest resources or the administration of indigenous territories often conflict with prior laws. Good legislative intentions are frustrated by circumstances and existing legal frameworks that limit the applicability of new legal protection. A specific feature of legislation affecting resource management in the ecoregion is that legal management, administrative and judicial competencies, and the penalties for violations, are not always clear. Fines in Costa Rica for illegal extraction of wood are negligible in relation to profits, and management practices in protected areas must be modified to facilitate enforcement.
Illegal logging threatens forests directly as a function of extraction and indirectly through the opening of logging roads. Roads facilitate squatting invasions by groups of people who build huts, cut trees, and settle in until they acquire rights to the land, later building more durable housing or engaging in speculation with developers.
The government of Costa Rica promoted tourism aggressively during the 1990s, and now the tourism industry is the country's primary source of income. The industry has provided new jobs and helped to alleviate poverty, but has also led to a regulatory climate biased in favor of investors, who have been permitted to build large tourist facilities in or near sites that cannot sustain the resulting volume of human traffic. Similar situations are emerging in Panama, especially in Bocas del Toro. Municipal governments in Costa Rica and district governments in Panama, along with the national governments, assist the industry in evading regulatory requirements or in complying minimally. These threats can be addressed through the adoption of best practices in the tourism industry, particularly as it affects protected areas.
Government policy also promotes agribusiness and shows favorable treatment to banana companies regarding their labor policies. In banana-producing areas along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and in Bocas del Toro, Panama, hiring and dismissal of staff by banana companies is deliberately irregular, ensuring that employees are exempt from labor rights granted by law. The result is an intermittently unemployed population of migrant workers and families driven to illegal extraction activities for subsistence. State-backed agribusiness also causes pollution due to the largely unregulated use of pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers applied by aerial fumigation. Inevitably, toxic residues end up in wastewater and rivers, ultimately poisoning and killing coral reefs such as those off Cahuita, Costa Rica.
Many experts also mention alarming levels of institutional corruption at both national and regional levels, and hold this responsible for the ineffective control of logging. There are indications that the approval of forest management plans is plagued with corruption in Costa Rica. Specific studies, such as the one on the Talamanca-Caribbean Corridor in the Atlantic, document these levels of corruption in which authorities are not properly certified, tags used to mark trees for cutting are reused, and logging permits are reused for different and unauthorized areas.
Administrative inefficiency in both countries undermines the effect of protected areas. Management plans for protected areas in Costa Rica and Panama are nonexistent, outdated or inefficient, and conservation efforts in protected areas are often improvised and lacking in clear guidelines.
Huge hydroelectric projects are planned in the ecoregion, especially in the Talamanca Mountains and in Costa Rica's Boruca region. While these projects could have some positive impact, there is concern that they may have a direct effect on particular ecosystems and the rights of indigenous peoples whose territories will be partially flooded.
Both countries have an interest in oil exploration and in the possible drilling that could result. Although there is no specific project under way, there are antecedents in the Talamanca region showing that such a project can affect the ecology and the surrounding indigenous societies. Pollution from oil drilling would be disastrous for the marine and coastal ecosystems in the Caribbean off the coasts of Costa Rica and Panama. A proposed pipeline from the Pacific to the Atlantic, most likely running from southeast Costa Rica to western Panama, represents a similar threat.
A proposed "Trans-Talamanca" highway would connect southern Costa Rica with the Caribbean port of Moín, facilitating agribusiness operations in Costa Rica's southern Pacific area. The highway would traverse Amistad International Park and probably several other protected areas and indigenous territories. Such highways facilitate a variety of illicit activities - illegal logging, squatting, and poaching of wildlife and archaeological resources. Roads also have direct environmental impact - in one recent case, a private road was built without any permits in the San San-Pond Sak wetlands, affecting natural drainage and placing the wetland ecosystem in jeopardy.
Mining exploration is a looming threat in the ecoregion. In Panama, large concessions such as the Colorado Peak - in the middle of Ngobe territory - have been approved. Exploitation of this peak is expected to displace five times the volume of soil and rock that was removed to open the Panama Canal. An immense portion of the ecoregion is already subject to pending requests for mining permits. Exploration is not necessarily damaging, but any resulting mining is expected to employ the "open sky" method in which vegetation and soil are removed. The future of these concessions is uncertain, and neither country has shown the political will to regulate mining to protect ecologically important areas.
The cattle industry and associated conversion of forest land is a generalized threat throughout both countries. Ranching also contributes to erosion and soil depletion. This problem is more acute in the Pacific region of Costa Rica and Panama, but it is spreading on the Caribbean side as a result of encroachment by settlers migrating from parts of the country with a ranching tradition.
Poaching on protected or private land is common throughout the region, partly owing to inefficient enforcement. Leading factors, in addition to poverty, include cultural traits that can be addressed through environmental education. Overfishing is a similar threat in marine and coastal environments where resources such as lobster, sea cucumber, and corals are overexpoited - even when small-scale techniques and gear are employed. This affects reefs on the Atlantic and mangroves on the Pacific coast in both countries.
Weak or nonexistent nongovernmental organizations in the region inhibit the development of strategic alliances involving the local population - whose participation is critical to the attainment of conservation goals. Local communities in and around protected areas are not aware of the importance of biodiversity, and many regard protected areas as impediments to their economic opportunity. Conservation activities are undermined by the lack of tangible benefits to local communities. In this region, however, many people profit from enterprises affected by conservation, such as tourism. Few NGOs are in place to capitalize on such opportunities to demonstrate the value of conservation, promote benefit-sharing, or secure community support.
Land tenure or
latifundismo (breakdown of land into smaller holdings) and land speculation have generated confusion and conflict in all three corridors. Many lands have been acquired spontaneously without documentation of specific claims. Sometimes land is acquired by several owners at the same time - e.g., in overlapping parcels with different owners. The national governments have carried out
latifundismo within protected areas or areas of ecological interest, despite legal protection.
Population growth is very rapid in some areas, and will probably lead to increased pressure on natural resources. Areas of the Panamanian and Costa Rican Caribbean have especially experienced population growth owing to migration from areas where soils are depleted and owing to the job opportunities created by agribusiness.
Infrastructure development is a significant threat to biodiversity if not well planned. The Plan Pueblo-Panama is an initiative catalyzed by the new administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox to spur greater economic development in southern Mexico. It is based on the economic growth theory that investments that reduce the real costs of production will have a positive impact on economic growth. The PPP represents a broad priority-setting and planning effort for infrastructure development, packaged in an omnibus proposal endorsed by the region's governments in order to seek international and domestic financing. It also hopes to serve as a long-term framework for a regional development plan. It is interesting to note that by including Central America in the plan, Mexico is - for the first time - looking at its economic interests as being influenced by its southern neighbors.
The PPP was approved by the presidents of Central America and the prime minister of Belize in early 2001, and is coordinated by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) with the support of an advisory committee representing the IDB, the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Central American Economic Integration Bank. The PPP is still in the early phases of government consultations with private-sector investors and initially has had high-level political support. Given the lead time required to assemble such large financing packages, there is still time for conservationists to influence the planning process in a coordinated manner. Improved communications will be needed to explain this program to the general public and local communities. Assistance will also be needed to hold these development initiatives accountable to their stated goals of sustainable development and conservation.
To complement the work in Costa Rica and Panama, the CEPF convened more than 40 stakeholders in Nicaragua for a workshop in August 2001 to learn more about the conservation needs and priorities in the southeastern part of the country, particularly the Indio Maiz Corridor. Stakeholders identified threats in the region consistent with those affecting the corridor as a whole:
- conversion of forest land to plantations and pasture;
- population growth;
- poor land use planning;
- erosion and sedimentation;
- poaching of timber and wildlife;
- lack of environmental awareness; and
- inadequate human resources to implement conservation policies.
Threats in the Talamanca Mountains differ between the Atlantic region and Pacific region. Only recently has agricultural development taken place in the Atlantic region, connected to the massive migration of landless
campesinos attracted by the possibility of vacant terrain. However, this same region was the first to undergo agribusiness development, with banana companies setting up production activities as of the beginning of the 20th century. These companies have attracted enormous migrations of national and foreign labor, but as enclaves unconnected with national production, they have no great impact on the regional economy and well-being of the population. Thus, the region has experienced economic development but not real development, with one of the most palpable consequences being that it is among the poorest in Costa Rica. Delayed agricultural exploitation in the Costa Rican Atlantic region also explains why large tracts of forest are better preserved, which in turn explains the survival of important indigenous communities.
The most visible threats in the region include:
- fronts of colonization and agriculture;
- uncontrolled colonization accompanied by serious problems of land titling and corruption;
- marijuana production in the Alto Telire region and the presence of drug traffickers with sophisticated arms;
- unregulated growth of the hotel industry in coastal regions;
- mining throughout the Atlantic region;
- extensive mobilization of people and interests, creating pressure to open roads and build infrastructure; and
- construction of hydroelectric dams.
Unlike the Atlantic region, the Pacific coast was developed early. Cattle grazing has been present since the 18th century and roads between Costa Rica and Panama were opened in the 17th century, although the highway itself was actually built between 1945-'60. This has been a destination of massive campesino migration since the 19th century, with adverse impact on forests.
In this sector threats are fairly well controlled, without the land tenure and occupation disorder characteristic of the Atlantic region. Current threats include:
- forest fires and fires in areas of natural pasture;
- poaching, facilitated by inadequate law enforcement;
- usurpation of land in indigenous territories;
- agricultural colonization in the Pacific region within Panama; and
- the weak management category (and corresponding lack of human resources) assigned to Las Tablas Protected Zone.
The province of Bocas del Toro has experienced a situation comparable to that of Costa Rica's Atlantic zone, since banana companies have been active in the area since early on. Likewise, this region is relatively isolated from the rest of Panama (before the road to Gualaca was built the only way in was through Costa Rica), and its social fabric is multi-ethnic, including indigenous, black, campesino and Creole peoples. As in Costa Rica, the presence of banana companies has created an economic enclave with no clear impact on development in the region, although it has generated employment. The presence of indigenous groups in the region (Naso, Ngöbe-Buglés) has also represented a positive factor for maintenance of significant forest cover, although it appears that accelerated processes of change are occurring in the cultural patterns of these peoples, thus eroding their presence as a conservation opportunity. Threats to this region have included:
- the opening of roads;
- small migrations from other regions of Panama or from other countries;
- an extraordinary rise in tourism and unregulated development of infrastructure, problems of land tenure and land speculation, and the absence of studies that can be used to monitor regions with substantial tourist traffic;
- over-exploitation of marine resources (e.g. lobster) in demand in the tourism industry;
- inadequate regulation and enforcement;
- contamination by banana companies; and
- mining and oil interests.
Only recently created, the Ngöbe-Buglé district has reconfigured Panamanian territory, particularly the limits of the Bocas del Toro and Chiriquí provinces. Although the district is also situated in the Talamanca mountain zone, spanning both slopes, it should be considered separately due to its culturally different population and the distinct stakeholders - local, regional and district congresses - making up the political and administrative structure of the region, and due to certain distinct problems. Biologists cite, for example, "loss of the culture of the indigenous population." While in anthropological terms this is considered cultural change rather than "loss," the romantic idea that indigenous is equivalent to conservation can no longer be sustained. Indigenous cultures also have problems of resource deterioration and inappropriate land use. The phenomenon can be viewed as a challenge to find livelihood and practices culturally adapted to the Ngöbe-Buglé population in order to support conservation, educate about the environment, reassess sustainable practices of the past and seek new solutions to new problems that they are also experiencing.
Despite the special legal regime, it should be noted that the effectiveness of norms is not automatic and the region has countless problems concerning land tenure and usurpation by the non-indigenous. In addition, some non-indigenous people possessed land before the declaration granting district status to the area. These holdings remain in an ambiguous situation, and the state has neither possibilities nor interest in recovering them.
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