128Canopy Blog

As tourism in the province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica increases, so does the construction of new hotels, restaurants and related tourism attractions.  However, not all of these businesses take the time or the investment to commit with the conservancy of the environment.

Many hotels unfortunately prefer to take a shortcut and avoid setting up a proper system in which residual waters and other waste is properly disposed.  This type of infraction is very common with hotels located near the beach and estuaries.  These hotels find quite simple and cheap to just drain all residual waters into the estuary or the sea thus contaminating the natural environment of many species as well as swimming waters used by tourists.

The latest hotel to be closed by the Ministry of Health is the Giardini di Papagayo located in Panama Beach in Guanacaste.  Authorities have stated that the hotel has repeatedly broken the law by overlooking sanitary regulations and continued dumping its residual waters into a nearby estuary.

The hotel was shut down until it will be able to present a remedial plan for its water treatment which is to be approved by the Ministry of Health.  Authorities have mentioned that there were no guests at the hotel at the time of its closing.  In addition to the closing of the hotel, the Giardini’s restaurant will not be able to sell food either until the sanction is lifted.

Hopefully, drastic measures such as the one mentioned above will make other hotels and tourist centers look twice into their practices and make all necessary corrections for the sake of nature and their community’s wellbeing and development.

The Costa Rican Sewer and Aqueduct Institute (AyA) released its report in which 13 popular beach destinations show high contamination levels.  The contamination is due to the dumping of residual waters into the ocean by a group of irresponsible commerce, hotels and residential homes.

The Ministry of Health has alerted local and foreign tourists of the beaches that present high contamination levels as a number of health problems such as skin infections, diarrhea, respiratory infections and headaches will most likely affect those who swim in these waters.

The AyA has stated that the accepted coliform count allowed is of 240 per every 100 milliliters of water.  Some of these waters have presented eye opening levels of up to 4,900 coliforms per 100 milliliters of water.

The beaches that have been deemed not appropriate for swimming by the Ministry of Health and the AyA are Jaco, El Coco, Quepos, Cieneguita, Portete and Tambor.  Other beaches mentioned in the report are still adequate for swimming but still present a considerable level of contamination.  These beaches are Samara, Agujas, Hermosa, Herradura, Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo.

The public sector has implemented an intervention method to force local commerce, hotel and residential homes to take the necessary precautions to avoid contamination and to commit to the preservation and conservancy of the environment.

This intervention has had very good results as recently shown by the Tamarindo beach.  In Tamarindo, coliform levels went from 4,900 to 45 in one year.  Although Tamarindo has shown an important improvement in its water’s quality, the Ecological Blue Flag cannot yet be granted as some key areas still present an unacceptable coliform level.

Hopefully the hotel industry as well as the beach communities will understand the gravity of their actions and will make amends in order to guarantee a steady tourist attraction for years to come.

A Mexican hornshark was captured in Costa Rican waters making it the first of its kind to be reported found in local waters.  The Mexican hornshark (Heterodontus mexicanus) is a rare shark species that is normally found in Mexican waters and reproduces by laying eggs in rocky bottoms.

A local artisan fisherman from Tarcoles, in Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Coast, had embarked in one of his regular trips to a sector in front of Herradura Island.  Luis Angel Rojas usually heads out to this area to fish for snapper and bass and has come across the Mexican hornshark before but would always throw it back into the sea because it had no commercial value to him.

It wasn’t until one of the local biologists from the Marine Turtle Restoration Program (PRETOMA) mentioned to Luis Angel that the Mexican hornshark was a rare species which reproduced by laying eggs.  The fisherman then caught one and brought it to the scientists on shore.

The species lays its eggs in a golden spiral form and the baby sharks normally hatch until after a year of development.  The Mexican hornshark lives near the coast and is typically found in rocky bottoms at a depth of 65 to 165 feet.

The hornshark normally doesn’t exceed the length of 70cm. and is equipped with razor sharp teeth and a strong hide.