Extended Front (Frente Amplio) requests intervention of SETENA

Delegate Jose Merino del Rio solicited to urgently intervene the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental (SETENA), with respect to the multiplying complaints on the irregularities in their operations, on June 5th World Environment Day.   

The legislator of the Extended Front made the request of intervention in the General Contraloría of the Republic, at the same time he presented the complaints before the Public Ministry and to the office of the Procuraduria of Ethics under the presumption of the crime of trafficking influence,

The delegate Merino argues that in SETENA a political intervention of superiors in the Government has existed, breaching of legal obligations, weakening of environmental controls, conflicts of interests and illegal entailment of its civil servants with the holders of activities or projects subject to environmental evaluation”.

The Extended Front asked to the General Comptroller of the Republic to investigate the irregular approvals contrary to the laws of the far-reaching projects with high environmental impact, and mentions the following: The irregular granting of environmental viability to the production of pineapple of the company Tico Verde S.A. in Guácimo, Lemon, although in two previous occasions SETENA had declared this activity non-viable and had ordered their closing by violation of the areas of protection of the water resources and other breaches of environmental legislation.

The approval of the touristic mega- project Punto Cacique, in Guanacaste, guaranteed by SETENA, in spite of it affecting a zone of dry tropical primary forest of great ecological importance.

The endorsement of SETENA for the project Desarollo Playa Hermosa, located on a moist soil area, in spite of the negative criterion by the representatives of the Area of Conservation Central Pacific.

The case of the Pochotal Lagoon, where a project that would also be affecting the moist soil and that was approved, according to a received complaint, the interested investor “would have contributed” equipment for SETENA.

The case of mega-project Mar Serena, located in the terrestrial maritime zone of Guanacaste, in which written complaints by the civil servants in charge of their environmental study also exist regarding the pressures for their approval that would have forced them to ask for their transfer to another institution.