Ecobreves – COSTA RICA: Cities Take Environmental Priority

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SAN JOSE, Oct 1 2003 (IPS) - The deterioration of the urban environment in Costa Rica will be one of the central themes of the National Environmental Management System, which is setting an agenda for the priority ecological issues for the coming decade .

The plan — financed by the Central American Economic Integration Bank at a cost of two million dollars — will focus on declining quality of life in the cities caused by water and air contamination, solid waste and erosion.

“The main environmental problems are not in rural areas, but in the cities. This strategy will give us the capacity to negotiate a visions of sustainable development among all institutions,” Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, minister of environment and energy, told Tierramérica.

The National Environment Council is in charge of drafting the agenda, with input from the ministries of environment and energy, planning and economic policy, agriculture and livestock, health, science and technology, and public education.