Kenya and Costa Rica - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 205

Landownership was a continuing problem. In 1961 the Law on Lands and
Colonization was passed. A goal was to see that rural people got ownership
and to avoid an unfair concentration in the hands of wealthy corporations.
It continued the democratic desire to strengthen the yeoman farmer.
Yet these farmers were cutting down the virgin forests.
The first nature reserve, located at Cabo Blanco on the Nicoya Peninsula,
came from a private initiative lead by foreigners. Olof Wessberg, a Swede,
had settled there in 1955 to live an idyllic life in a tropical Eden. But settlers
moved in, destroying the forest with swidden (slash-and-burn) agriculture,
then selling the exhausted land to cattle ranchers and timber companies.
To buy the land Wessberg solicited North American and European envi-
ronmentalists. Donations to purchase the country's first nature reserve
came from the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, Friends of Nature,
and the British World League against Vivisection.
The next reserve was sponsored by the government, not private dona-
tions. This was at Santa Rosa in the far northwest on the border with
Nicaragua. It held historical importance because there in 1856 a Costa
Rican brigade defeated an invasion by a North American filibusterer,
William Walker, who had grandiose plans to establish his own personal
empire in Nicaragua. The land itself was an example of a rare dry forest.
The government purchased 300,000 acres to be a national monument in
1966 and later designated it as a national park. 17
The comprehensive Forest Law of 1969 was developed by experts and
top officials. The Minister of Agriculture Guillermo Yglesias assembled a
team from government, the university, and groups representing conserva-
tionists, stock growers, and timber companies. They hired a Venezuelan
forester, Nestor Altuve, to help draft the legislation. Altuve was then work-
ing with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The international
expertise brought to bear was exemplary. The commissioners worried that
if the Legislative Assembly did not pass a law soon, deforestation would
have gone too far to rein in. The population was growing rapidly, and
squatters were taking over land. Only 50% of the forests remained. While
public support for the legislation was strong, so was opposition from land-
owners, ranchers, and loggers. The law finally passed on November 25.
The Forest Law provided that a National Parks Department could be
created, but it had little funding and few employees at first. The head was
Mario Boza, who had just earned a master's degree from the Inter-American
Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture at Turrialba. Part of his studies
included a long field trip, including Smokey Mountain National Park in