On Wednesday, January 15, the Municipality of Santa Cruz’s environmental management department inspected the Pelencho Beach sector, in Brasilito of Santa Cruz, to verify the complaints and concerns of citizens about a possible massive felling of trees located in front of Palencho Beach and along the public road that leads there, in an area adjacent to Cantomar Ocean Club, a luxury real estate development project.
The person in charge of the municipality’s environmental management department, Geissel Gutiérrez, confirmed that the municipality’s Technical Unit for Road Management (Spanish acronym: UTGV) did an inventory of the trees along the public road and identified them with the plaques that area residents see (although the official didn’t specify the number of trees that were inventoried, but community residents report that there are more than 60).
The reason? The Municipality of Santa Cruz signed an agreement with Cantomar Ocean Club in which the development agreed to make improvements to the road, which runs from Bohemia Pharmacy towards the ocean, as Gutiérrez explained to The Voice. The developer’s work would involve cutting down several trees, she added.
Cantomar’s environmental lawyer, German Pochet Ballestero, stated in a video that the trees will not be cut down yet and that, on the contrary, the company is seeking to preserve them. According to the video, that’s why they created the Punta Loros Association, which is the group that would have carried out the inventory and labeled the trees.
What the environmental manager still can’t explain is why the trees on the beach were not included in the inventory that the road management department shared.
“We are making a request to our colleagues from the Technical Road Management Unit to see if they can explain a little more about the project so that we ourselves can clarify it,” explained Gutiérrez.
“I know that [the plaques] along the road are here in an inventory that the municipality already has, but I am completely unaware of those in the maritime land zone, in the public zone, because I don’t have any (documented) paperwork,” she added.
The municipality has not submitted the request to cut down trees to the National System of Conservation Areas (Spanish acronym: SINAC), affirmed the person in charge of the environmental management department, and the Tempisque Conservation Area (Spanish acronym: ACT) confirmed that in a letter sent to the Municipality of Santa Cruz on Thursday, January 16 (SINAC-ACT-OSRSCC-055-2025).
The Voice also called the UTGV’s registered telephone numbers, but no one answered. We sent an email requesting information on the matter, but no reply has been received yet. The Voice also sought explanations from the local government’s press officer, Francisco Mairena, but he didn’t answer the calls or messages sent to his WhatsApp.
On the other hand, during a telephone call on Thursday, January 16, the general director of Cantomar in Costa Rica, Robert Davey, told The Voice that the project is within the legal framework and that he won’t comment on the subject.
The Cantomar Ocean Club project will consist of 23 properties in an oceanfront gated community with three swimming pools, according to information available on its website.
The route that the Municipality of Santa Cruz has authorized Cantomar to work on is about 700 meters long, from the secondary national route 180 to Pelencho Beach. According to data from area residents, there are about 60 trees with a plaque-style label along the public road.
SINAC urged the municipality to clarify the case
Faced with repeated citizen complaints, SINAC communicated in the letter dated Thursday, January 16 that it does not have any record of a request from the Municipality of Santa Cruz for cutting down trees in the sector.
“The office has been clear in informing the citizens who have consulted us that there is no open file in SINAC in which there is a request by that municipality to obtain a permit to cut these trees,” stated Orlando Matarrita, the subregional head of the Santa Cruz-Carrillo sector of the Tempisque Conservation Area in an official letter sent this Thursday, January 16, to the mayor of Santa Cruz, Jorge Arturo Alfaro Orias.
Matarrita urged the mayor to clarify whether or not there is any municipal endorsement to remove these trees because “there has been no timely response from that municipality to the complaints of the citizens, which causes the concern of the citizens to persist.”
Although the felling excludes the trees in front of the beach, in the public area, the community fears the impact that the lack of these trees will mean for the troops of monkeys that cross the sector.
“I have seen all the change that has happened since the development has come and one of the most painful changes is the negative impact on nature… There are groups of monkeys that use this pass…. These groups come from the mountain, behind Brasilito, and go down and enter through the street that leads to Pelencho Beach and feed on these trees…. and continue along the corridor until they reach the forest on this side of Flamingo Mountain,” lamented a community resident called Lady Mariam Paniagua in a video posted on social media.
With concerns about logging, the community has been going to the area to put up signs and plan a possible demonstration.Photo: Stephanie Flament
The project does have environmental viability, according to information available on the development signage, but it was approved 18 years ago, in 2007. The 38,864 square meter (9.6 acre) project is under file Da-1286-2006-Setena, and has environmental viability approval No. 2758-2007-Setena.
The person in charge of the local government’s environmental management department, Geissel Gutiérrez, assured that she will also ask the development for the environmental management plan.
“We don’t know about the environmental management plan to know what they committed to, what their mitigation plan and compensation works are, etc.,” she specified. “At this moment, I am sending the company a request for a copy of the environmental management plan to review and follow up on the environmental permits that they acquired,” she added.
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