The article below is a long detailed guest post by Margie Thompson of Escribana

“This place is magical. … the Southern Caribbean has such an attraction that when people come here they can’t explain why they want to stay.” (Maritza Morales Williams, young Afro Costa Rican from Puerto Viejo)

Famous for being one of the most biologically rich areas in the world with a population comprised of a unique mixture of ethnic origins and cultures going back over 100 years with the Afro descendants, the communities along the Talamanca coast in southeast Costa Rica have a long history of resistance against attempts to bring mega “development” projects to the region. They fear that such projects would drastically change their communities and also harm their flourishing ecotourism industry. And the latest challenge for the coastal towns of Cahuita, south to Puerto Viejo, Manzanillo and Gandoca involves a struggle over historic land rights.

Rosa Díaz, a coordinator of the Foro Caribe Sur told Escribana that the area is rich in diversity, “not just biological with the beauty of the area, but also of the people, the culture. This culture is different and you won’t find it anywhere else.”

The Foro is a growing community movement of inhabitants from the Southern Caribbean, an area that includes the coastal towns of Cahuita, Puerto Viejo, Cocles and Playa Chiquita, Manzanillo and Gandoca.

 

LONG HISTORY OF RESISTANCE AGAINST CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION

In 2001, plans by US oil company Harken Energy (once owned by former President George W. Bush) to drill offshore in the Caribbean near Limon were rejected after the communities organized in opposition and the Supreme Court eventually declared it unconstitutional. Likewise, a plan introduced in 2008 to build a $40 million marina with 389 slips for yachts in the beach town of Puerto Viejo was scrapped after the communities organized against it for fear that the negative impacts on the environment and culture would far outweigh any possible benefits to the economy.

 

These coastal communities are proud. Proud of what they have built, proud of their history, their cultures, and fiercely protective of their connections to the land.

Although elsewhere in Costa Rica some have a more negative image of the area that focuses on petty crime and drugs, Maritza Morales dismisses that focus, saying that the Talamanca coast is no different from other parts of the country, and that people need to go and see it for themselves. Racism and discrimination also play a role in tarnishing the image of the area, given the diverse mixture of ethnic origins of the people that includes Afro Costa Ricans, Chinese, indigenous, and others. This is likely a factor to explain why the area has long been ignored and isolated by the Costa Rican government, with less support for health, education and tourism promotion.

 

STRUGGLE OVER HISTORIC LAND RIGHTS & CREATION OF FORO CARIBE SUR

A growing number of people in the coastal communities fear that their small paradise in the southern Caribbean is being severely threatened by the current government, land speculators, transnational mining and oil interests and mega tourism developers. Although 90% of the land in the Talamanca region is within some kind of wildlife or indigenous reserve, manipulation is taking place behind the scenes, designed to create confusion and pass laws in the name of “protection” that would weaken or even eliminate historical land rights of coastal villages.

“We were born and raised here looking at the sea and here we want to live with our children and grandchildren, so nobody is going to take us out of here,” said Miss Sam, an 81-year-old Afro Costa Rican from Puerto Viejo. She is a former midwife who birthed hundreds of babies through the years, in an area that had no health clinics or doctors for decades until the 1980s.

Miss Sam spoke at the Forum Caribe Sur (south Caribbean) in July.

 

Maritza Morales, a spokesperson for the Foro Caribe Sur and owner of a small business, echoed the sentiments of Miss Sam, saying, “Why would they take the land away from us? What would we pass along to our children? And how would we maintain our culture, our traditions, our roots?”

Edwin Patterson of Puerto Viejo, a former representative in the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly and also a spokesperson for the Foro Caribe Sur told Escribana that the struggle of the Southern Caribbean population is the struggle for a place to live, by people who have worked here over centuries and which has not excluded the protection of biodiversity, but on the contrary, the ancestral population has protected what exists in the area.

Morales recalled that at one forum session in Cahuita a woman spoke about how this struggle is about the need for inhabitants to recover their roots, but also for the future of the children and youth.

Participants in the Forum include individuals as well as people from several social and cultural organizations comprised of fisherpeople, women, environmentalists, organic farmers, and small entrepreneurs, as well as those in sports and education groups. The Forum reflects the rich cultural and social mixture of inhabitants in the area including the original Afro Costa Ricans and Chinese, but also other Costa Ricans, as well as Europeans, Canadians, and persons from United States, who operate small businesses ranging from small hotels to restaurants, cafes and bars, as well as eco-tourism enterprises.

The Talamanca coastal area is populated by a combination of housing belonging to the descendants of the original Afro Costa Rican population, homes of people who have bought land from them in the course of the last 50 years, and newcomers who continue to arrive.

But recently the Costa Rican government has been trying to change the laws and regulations to favor big tourism projects throughout the country, and has threatened to demolish and evict people from their humble homes and small businesses, thus undermining their rights, particularly those of the Afro Costa Ricans.

This is paving the way to privatization and incursion by transnational corporations with mega development projects.

 

SUSPICIONS ABOUT INTENTIONS OF CLAIMS TO “PROTECT” HISTORIC LAND RIGHTS

Díaz notes that a growing number of people in the Forum are suspicious about the real intentions behind this shift. “We see that there is no intention to promote tourism by the ICT [Costa Rica Tourism Board] in the Caribbean coast, but the question is why?” Diaz told Escribana that investigations by the Forum and others indicate that the southern Caribbean coast “is not part of the plans of the big corporations as a site to develop large tourism projects because here there are other natural resources, worth a lot more.”

As such, the ICT has done little to combat the negative image of the Caribbean coast, which Diaz also regards as suspect.

“Talamanca has a large portion of its land area in protected zones, but we ask why, and for whom are they protected?” Diaz noted that during the past decades, there have been explorations for minerals including gold and copper, and also oil. In 1997 then President Jose Maria Figueres (1994-1998) negotiated multiple concession blocks for oil and mineral exploration throughout Costa Rica and particularly in the of Talamanca. The first concession was granted in 2000 for offshore oil drilling near Limon to Harken Energy, a US oil company.

Díaz and others in the Foro Caribe Sur suspect that the government may view the current struggle over land rights as an opportunity to move ahead with exploitation and extraction of oil and minerals, “so it’s evident that the interests here go beyond tourism.”

PUSH FOR COMMUNITY-BASED DEVELOPMENT MODEL TO ENSURE THAT PEOPLE “LIVE WELL”

Well aware of their history of resistance against corporate globalization, the communities are organizing the Foro Caribe Sur to address the current issues related to historic land rights. The Forum is also working to design a model of development that is based upon and preserves the culture and ecosystems of the local area.

“We are a small and tranquil community and want to defend what we have, but they view us as obstacles for mega projects such as oil drilling and the marina,” said Diaz. “We prefer to be the owners of small cabins or restaurants, not a big hotel where we would work for the corporations. Some people don’t understand this…we don’t want to be millionaires but we want to live well.”

 

This concept of “living well” is a focus of the Foro Caribe Sur as the members work together to envision the future of their multicultural and biodiverse communities.

 

 

Every day the community is ongoing, living and providing food services and exchange, but if you take away the right to land, where are our children going to live?” asked Orlando Brown of Puerto Viejo. “Why does the government promote every day new laws that violate our rights on the coast? There are designated spaces for monkeys, there are designated spaces for dolphins, for crocodiles, etc…And after all that, for my grandchildren there is no space,” said Brown.

DISSECTING THE STATISTICS OF “LIVING WELL” IN THE TALAMANCA CANTON

While the Southern Caribbean has its share of problems, ranging from poverty, high youth unemployment, racism, lack of opportunities such as in education with few high schools, and the incursion of drugs and criminality, the members of the Forum argue that local development is the key with a focus on land rights.

A quick glance at the Human Development Index shows that the entire canton of Talamanca has one of the lowest rankings in Costa Rica. However, the canton includes four districts, including Cahuita, Sixaola, Bratsi, Telire, and the index varies considerably for each district, says Diaz.

In fact the district of Cahuita, which includes the towns of Cahuita, south to Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo have a higher rating than the other districts. Diaz noted that the unemployment rate for the Cahuita district is 3%, compared with 6% nationwide.

AVAAZ PETITION TO DEMAND GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

As a strategy to accomplish their goals, the Forum has organized a petition campaign on AVAAZ to gather signatures from local inhabitants as well as others at the national and international level to support a declaration by the Forum. It demands that the government listen to local inhabitants and work with the people to create a local development plan of their own “that fits with our needs and the protection of our environment, our culture, and our way of life.”

The Caribbean coast was left isolated for decades based in part on racism because “the Costa Rican government forgot, discriminated [against] and ignored the citizenship of our people, despite the fact that [we] have contributed significantly to the economic, cultural and pluralistic national identity,” according to the Forum declaration.

In the document, the people of the Forum recognize that “for over 100 years of history, our people of African descent have contributed to the local, national and international community a unique identity in this country, enriched in past years by the mixture of cultures…and that history was written with the sweat and blood of its founders, heirs and current residents.”

LEGAL MAZE BEHIND HISTORIC LAND RIGHTS STRUGGLE

Much of the controversy involves the Maritime Zone (ZMT) Law which was approved in Costa Rica in 1977 and designated as public property the 200 meters of shoreline inward from the highest tide line. In the first 50 meters, nothing can be constructed because there is mandatory public access, but for the next 150 meters the state can grant concessions for homes and businesses under certain conditions.

Titled ownership of land in this area prior to the 1977 law was allowed as an exception, but the original law did not include onsite census or mapping of the zone to extablish what infrastructure or contructions were already in the area.

Much of the mapping was created from air surveys by government officials who flew over the region to determine which areas should be designated as wildlife refuges, indigenous reserves or coastal urban areas. And various government decrees and laws passed since 1977 have proved to be a ping pong ball game of the government against the stability of various townships, creating never ending conflict.

Municipalities such as Talamanca have full authority over their territories regarding regulation of land use in the MZT, whereas MINAE (Ministry of Environment, Energy and Telecommunications) manages the wildlife refugees and the national parks and the autonomous indigenous governments oversee the indigenous reserves of the Kekoldi, and the Bribri and Cabécar further inland in the mountains of the canton of Talamanca.

In collaboration with the ICT (Tourism Institute) and other agencies, municipal governments in coastal areas are also responsible for developing a Coastal Regulatory Plan in collaboration with their communities to resolve any land disputes. But in the case of Talamanca, the local municipality has failed to draft and adopt such plan.

In the past few years, the national government has declared its intention to enforce fully the MTZ, and evict and demolish many homes and businesses that fall within the 50-meter zone on the shore, also leaving in doubt the future of some concessions in the 200 meter area. The original inhabitants and their descendants who have lived on their land for over 100 years include many Afro Costa Ricans who often do not have title to their lands to ensure their continued status as exceptions to the MTZ. Historically, formal land titles were not needed or used, so many long-term inhabitants and residents are now working hard to get titles to their land.

PROPOSAL FOR FOUR NEW LAWS TO ADDRESS HISTORIC LAND RIGHTS ISSUES

Four new laws have been proposed in the Legislative Assembly that are designed to address the numerous errors and government irresponsibility through the years, but critics say they will complicate rather than resolve any of these issues. Because it doesn’t solve what people want, which is titles to their land based on acquired rights as original inhabitants, the Foro Caribe Sur advocate using existing laws which protect and promote the historic rights of inhabitants, but have been misused, abused and badly interpreted and then and only then, figure out what kind os special law might be needed to guarantee those rights.

The fourth law is called the Law of Recognition of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Southern Caribbean and would remove Manzanillo and the coastal land in the MTZ further north up to Cocles from The Gandoca Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge created in 1985.

Advocates of this proposal argue that it frees landholders in the refuge from MINAE government restrictions which severely limit the use of the land in the Refuge. Critics say that the way that the proposed law is currently drafted does not guarantee that the rights of Manzanillo inhabitants will be respected when they go from MINAE restrictions to the Municipal Regulatory Plan that will prioritize tourism.

In summary, none of these four proposed laws would address the overall problem of land titles or historic land rights, which is one of the main concerns of longterm inhabitants because it provides them with greater protection for their acquired rights. Viewed as a whole, the push for new laws seems to be a perverse and dangerous game because even though stated intentions may be good, the implications and interests served are not made clear. The situation is even more complex and tangled with investors, politicians and government each regarding it as an opportunity for their own interests.

“To preserve this little piece of Costa Rica, with its people, its culture and its environment is the obligation of a responsible and intelligent government because in addition to the historic rights of inhabitantes, it is precisely this place that has provided a big tourism attraction for the zone,” reflected Cristina Zeledón Lizano, a Costa Rican business woman who lives in the zone.