Kenya and Costa Rica - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 204

Toward the end of the 19th century, exploration for a canal from the
Atlantic to the Pacific drew foreign scientists to survey possible routes
across Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. A number of them stayed to
investigate its abundant birds and flowers. German naturalists Moritz
Wagner and Karl Scherzer wrote extensively. The Danish botanist Anders
Sandre Oersted studied plants. The British scientist William Moore Gabb
investigated the geology, and the Lithuanian Joseph Warscewicz collected
birds. The German Alexander von Frantzius came and stayed to teach
natural history. The country's new National Geographic Institute was
the focus for research. This scientific effort was far in advance of other
Latin American countries. The institute forged close connections to the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Later the institute came
under the supervision of the Costa Rican National Museum. The National
School of Agriculture, established in 1926, promoted farming practices
to prevent erosion, to avoid burning the land, and to protect forests.
A modern national university was not established until 1940. Earlier
a small one sponsored by the Catholic Church had existed, but it was
abolished in 1888 because the government was anticlerical, and because
secondary schools were inadequate to prepare matriculants.
Early in the 20th century, the government took steps to protect nature.
In 1909 it passed the Fire Law to control burning forests. In 1913 it enacted
a law to protect the area around the Poas Volcano. Also that year a law
declared a 600-foot swath of land along the coast and an 800-foot swath
along riverbanks to be safeguarded. In 1923 two laws regulated water. One
prohibited dumping effluents from sewers, dairies, and slaughterhouses
into rivers, and the other regulated watersheds. In 1930 the government
hired forest guards and organized them under supervision of a forestry
chief. Later the Law on Vacant Lands established preserves around the
Poas and Irazu volcanoes and on both sides of the Cordillera Central.
This also gave the government ownership of vacant lands. Unfortunately,
implementation was weak. In 1940 Costa Rican delegates traveled to
Washington, DC, where they signed the Convention on Nature Protection
and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere. 16
Progress was erratic during the 1950s and 1960s. The 1953 Soil and
Water Conservation Law authorized soil studies. That year President José
Figueres appointed a commission to study tourism. The commissioners
traveled to Peru, Mexico, Argentina, and the United States to learn about
parks. A 1958 law regulated wildlife, including hunting and the rights of
farmers to kill animals that interfered with their livestock and property.