Kenya and Costa Rica - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 206

Tennessee. Boza first turned his attention to Poas Volcano because it was
close to the capital of San José and connected by an all-weather highway.
Plans were similar to US parks with a visitor's center, nature trails,
interpretive signs and access to view the crater. he next year he visited
Tortuguero, the site of marine turtle hatching, as a potential park. This
was in a remote northeast of the country. His group included the former
and future president, José Figueres and his wife Karen Olsen de Figueres
(a Danish-American). Boza had a gift for friendship, and Doña Karen
adopted national parks as her special mission as First Lady. 18
The second park created was Santa Rosa in the north, elevated from
its status as a monument. Many problems afflicted it. Squatters invaded,
loggers cut timber, and nearby ranchers ran their cattle on it. One of the
offending ranchers was the agriculture minister himself, and the park
service was a branch of the Agriculture Ministry. Fortunately, Doña Karen
was able to intervene with her husband.
With funding and staff so scarce, Boza solicited money from abroad.
The World Wildlife Fund gave him a check for $5000 for Tortuguero,
famous for the sea turtle nesting. He asked the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Switzerland to pay for feasibility
studies. In the United States, he secured funding from the Conservation
Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Nature Conservancy,
and the Ford Foundation. In 1971 US Peace Corps Volunteers arrived
to help staff the Parks Department. Christopher Vaughan, eventually to
become a permanent resident, came with the Peace Corps to oppose com-
mercial trade in endangered species. Exporters were shipping dozens,
even hundreds, of quetzals, parrots, sloths, ocelots, and green turtles for
the black market. To expose these merchants of death, he published color
photographs. The British Volunteer Service Organization also sent staff.19 19
Manuel Antonio Park originated from local advocacy. Now the second
most visited park, it was established in 1972 after people in the nearby
town of Quepos on the Pacific Coast agitated for it. Foreign developers
were beginning construction of a big hotel, which offended the citizens,
who still revered their radical syndicalist activity in the 1930s, and more
recently had elected communists to the Legislative Assembly. Locals were
demonstrating against the new hotel, and some had resorted to sabotage.
Today, the small park between the beaches and the river is home to sloths,
howler monkeys, iguanas, and crocodiles. There are 184 bird species,
including toucans, motmots, and parakeets.