Town won't let power company
push it around to cut trees

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Many people in Costa Rica may not be familiar with the Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica de Centroamérica, which is a high voltage power line distribution system for the countries of Central America. The proposed route, which passes through the small village of La Alfombra, will cause serious environmental damage unless it is modified. There is a 2.5 km section of the proposed route that passes through a stand of primary and secondary rain/cloud forest along the top of the mountain range (Fila Tinamastes) above Playa Dominical on the south Pacific slope of Costa Rica.

This pristine forest is the principal recharge area or “ojo de agua” for the aquifer supplying Río Cana Blanca, Rio Guabo, Rio Baru and much of the fresh water for the villages all the way to the coast. The proposed route will also cut in two the Biological Corridor of the Tapir which connects the wildlife reserves of the Osa Peninsula to those of Cerro del Muerte and Manuel Antonio.

Because the area is extremely steep and unstable and because of the fragility of the cloud forest, a study by the Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion, which is part of the Ministerio de Ambiente, Energia y Telecomunicaciones, concluded that this section of the route was not viable and an alternative route should be used.  Fundación Neotrópica, the Audubon Society, the Centro Científico del Trópico Húmedo and ASANA (the conservation group overseeing the environmental wellbeing of the corridor), all agree.

The Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica has chosen to ignore these recommendations and is driving ahead with development which includes the cutting of thousands of trees.

This area is an extremely important watershed for the area.  Cutting the trees will result in serious erosion, creating sediment problems downstream and on the coast. The rainforest cover is required to capture and filter the rain water and allow it to slowly enter the aquifers and to provide pure water in the springs and rivers locally and down to the coast.

This corridor connects some of the largest, most pristine and most important (and most threatened) sites in all of Costa Rica and is fundamentally responsible for their continued survival (Corcovado, Terraba-Sierpe wetlands, Manuel Antonio, los Santos/Talamanca). No connectivity means certain biological death, now or in the near future.

The people of La Alfombra have been trying to convince the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, the Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica operator for Costa Rica, to use a different route. The village set up a committee to deal with the problem and the committee found an alternative route through pasture on the other side of the ridge which the government company known as ICE has dismissed. ICE simply says it has the required permits from the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental, which is part of the Ministerio de Ambiente, the same ministry that recommended using a different route. The La Alfombra residents scraped together enough money to hire a local lawyer to present their case for preserving the forest, but the courts don’t seem to care much about biological corridors, rainforests, cloudforests, watersheds, wildlife or much else compared to important development projects like foreign-owned power distribution systems. 

But the residents of La Alfombra continue their fight to protect the environment and the future of their country. When ICE figured La Alfombra would be easy to push around, they figured wrong. At one point, ICE employees even told the locals that their power would be cut off if they posted signs protesting against the project. But that didn’t stop them. Recently, ICE offered to build the village a football field in return for destroying the forest. These, like other rural Costa Ricans, are a persistent and stubborn bunch and won’t stand back and watch ICE or anyone destroy what took Mother Nature thousands of years to create.

We must act now to prevent irreversible environmental damage.

The Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica must be stopped until it can find an alternative route as recommended by the Ministerio de Ambiente.

Please voice your support by writing Costa Rican native Christiana Figueres, recently named new chief of the U.N. Climate Agency. You can express your opinion on what ICE and the government of Costa Rica are preparing to destroy by contacting Christiana Figueres - christiana@figueresonline.com and copy ICE, Eduardo Doryan (ICE President), contactenos@grupoice.com, SETENA, Sonia Espinosa Valverde (directora general), sespinosa@setena.go.cr; and MINAE, Ing. Teófilo de la Torre Argüello (minister), ministrominae@minae.go.cr and alfombra.no.siepac@gmail.com. And check out facebook: No ICE-SIEPAC in La Alfombra.

Playa Hermosa Association photo

Playa Hermosa Association photo