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Fred Morgan
Sponsor
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Posted: Mon Jan 21st, 2008 04:13 pm |
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One of our contract forestry engineers told us about a “plantation” that went astray. Many years ago in Guanacaste a person bought a lot of land, about 200 hectares or about 500 acres. He planted all sorts of different trees on it and then left it to grow, planning on coming back in several years to start realizing profit.
This is pretty much what you do up North, buy some land, plant some trees and go away for a long time because everything takes a long time to grow. Perhaps your kids will have a harvest. Here it isn’t that way as growth rates are up to 10 times faster.
Sadly, he never registered any of the land as a plantation, so MINAE doesn’t think it is. Now MINAE is rejecting his request to cut any trees because the “plantation” looks like secondary growth (it IS secondary growth because it wasn’t cared for) and he has no proof to the contrary. There are never permits issued to cut anything inside secondary growth.
This is so common down here. People assume that the laws of Costa Rica are the same as up North and go from the idea that if it is my land, I can do with it as I wish. This is not true at all here. In fact, Costa Rica now has a law in place that to start a business activity, you need to have it approved and how it will effect the waterways particularly. Even for us to build a modest workshop for building furniture and processing wood, we had to go through various steps.
Our plantations look like parks, all well cared for and no brush. I have had more than a few people wonder why, and this is why: If it doesn’t look like a plantation (i.e. rows of the same species), it is secondary forest unless you register with MINAE that you planted that way and it was the plan.
There are lots of abandoned plantations in Costa Rica. Around 1997 there were a lot of trees planted and not cared for. The plantations that are teak are pretty much a waste, and the few plantations that have natives, if they were left alone like this and not documented, are now part of the protected zone and untouchable. It is really sad, too, because there is not enough wood available in Costa Rica, in fact, only half of what is needed. If these investors had actually put in the kind of money and attention that is necessary to do it right, they would be retiring comfortably right now.
It isn’t like all of this information is not available. It is all documented in the forestry law, but a lot of investors just listen to their neighbors. You shouldn’t accept legal advice regarding plantations from anyone besides a registered forestry engineer, preferably two or three. Then read the law for yourself.
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