The Tempisque Conservation Area (spanish acronym: ACT) has identified nine properties invading the Lagarto River mangrove in the Cangrejal sector of Sámara. The ecosystem has been completely buried due to landfills dating back to the 1980s.
Five of the properties are privately owned, while four belong to the Maritime-Terrestrial Zone (spanish acronym: ZMT) and are administered by the Municipality of Nicoya. Two of these are currently under concession, while the other two have no concession.
Each property encroaches on the ecosystem to varying degrees. Therefore, the ACT must undertake different processes to reclaim the mangrove for the State and ensure its restoration.
What actions are required in each case? To understand and explain to you the situation, we spoke with ACT Deputy Director Mauricio Méndez and the Municipality of Nicoya’s ZMT officer, Erika Matarrita.
Private properties are more complex
Among the five private properties, two occupy the largest areas of the mangrove and are registered under Samara Hotel Corporation Limited (Corporación Hotelera de Sámara Sociedad Anónima (0109521)) and Bancol Sociedad Anónima (0091356).
The ACT will submit an inquiry to the legal advisory office of the Ministry of Environment and Energy (Spanish acronym: MINAE) to clarify what actions the law permits. According to ACT Deputy Director Mauricio Méndez, both the Forestry Law and the Wildlife Conservation Law allow authorities to enter private properties to enforce the law. However, they are uncertain if this applies in this case, as the process began due to a constitutional appeal before the Constitutional Chamber.
“This is a particular case, and we are not sure if the law supports it (…) [We will ask] whether the legal authority granted by the Forestry Law to enter private properties for law enforcement is sufficient to conduct soil studies [in the mangrove area] and determine the condition of the land beneath the landfill,” Méndez told The Voice.
The inquiry could even determine whether, if it is classified as a mangrove, we can start removing the fill material,” he added.
Another possible course of action is for the property owners—especially in cases where their land encroaches only slightly on the mangrove—to modify their property maps and submit the updates to the National Registry. These are the cases of Finca 0178600, owned by Sámara Es Pura Vida Sociedad, Finca 0229388, owned by Palmavera Sociedad Anónima, and Finca 01322788, owned by Arash Incorporated Sociedad Anónima.
However, by law, mangroves must have a restricted zone of 150 meters. “This makes the problem much bigger,” admits Meléndez.
The official clarified that the ACT has not directly spoken with any property owners, as the case involves a judicial analysis. In fact, the Constitutional Chamber has an open case after a community member, along with environmental lawyer Álvaro Sagot, filed a constitutional appeal when the Environmental Technical Secretariat approved the viability of Vistas de Sámara, a 300-room complex that was planned to be built on the mangrove.
The ACT must submit a report to the Constitutional Chamber in July, detailing all actions taken and planned.
Aerial view of the Cangrejal sector in Sámara, where the Lagarto River mangrove is buried. The subdivision and numbering on the map indicate the identified properties encroaching on the ecosystem.Photo: ACT
What about public fincas?
There are four public properties encroaching on the Sámara mangrove: two are Maritime-Terrestrial Zone lots that previously had concessions granted by the Municipality of Nicoya (0001558 and 0002222). Two others have no concession (P000372 and P000544).
A key step in the ecosystem’s recovery was taken by the Municipality of Nicoya, which revoked concession 1558-Z-000, affecting one of the properties on the mangrove and part of the site where the Vistas de Sámara complex was planned to be built.
The lot had been granted as a concession to Corporación Hotelera Sámara Sociedad Anónima [the same company that owns a private property] in November 1989 and was in the process of renewal. Corporación Hotelera Sámara had even requested an expansion of the concession area.
The other lot is currently concessioned to Álvarez Jiménez de Pass Sociedad Anónima, and according to the local government’s ZMT coordinator, “[Its renewal] is under review because the area [encroaching on the mangrove] can be excluded to comply with regulations.”
Matarrita confirmed that the P000372 and P000544 lots have pending concession requests—two for the first and one for the second—but the municipality must also modify the concession area, as they partially encroach on the mangrove.
The head of the ZMT Department of the Municipality of Nicoya, Erika Matarrita, assured that: “Each [lot] will be assessed individually according to its particular circumstances, but always with respect for and in guarantee of a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.”
The 9.6-hectare mangrove was completely buried in the 1980s when indiscriminate filling actions began over the ecosystem.Photo: César Arroyo Castro
Recovery is moving slowly
Once the ACT clarifies when and how it can access the properties, it will need to begin by conducting soil studies to determine the extent of the fill and what process would be required to remove the material obstructing the ecosystem, explains Mauricio Méndez, ACT Deputy Director. They must also carefully plan where to dispose of the removed material.
What we know so far, based on an aerial survey conducted by the surveyor, is that the fill is significant. However, this is only an approximation. [We need] to conduct soil studies to determine what exactly has been filled in. One would assume there is a gradient from deeper to shallower fill,” says Méndez.
The deputy director also highlights that the restoration process could take decades, and the fact that the mangrove is completely destroyed makes it difficult to determine which species originally thrived there, which is essential for reintroducing them and accelerating recovery.
“It’s not like planting trees in a field or pasture. A mangrove is much more complex because water flow shapes the landscape. We have no way of knowing what the original water flow was like,” explains Méndez.
That’s why the first major step will be to remove the fill material and stimulate the area’s natural recovery, ensuring the natural flow of rainwater and high tides.
The deputy director emphasizes that the removal process will not begin this year due to the legal proceedings involved in the case.
José Pablo Román contributed to the reporting of this information.
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