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Costa Rica to show off environmental achievements to rest of Latin America |
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Latin America will take a closer glimpse at Costa Rica's success in environmental management within the framework of a fair next Dec. 3 to 5, 2003, sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Local authorities are expecting a turnout of some 200 experts from 20 countries.
"This will help us show some of our top projects, such as the national parks, fees levied on environmental services and the certification of tourist sustainability", Costa Rican Minister of the Environment Carlos Manuel Rodriguez pointed out.
Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, the United States, Switzerland and Thailand will be among the participating nations.
As to the issues that both local and foreign experts will tackle, biodiversity, ecotourism, cleaner industrial processes and better environmental services will be high on the agenda.
Marcia Gonzalez, of the UNDP Office and coordinator of the event, explained the election of Costa Rica stems from the country's thriving schemes for conservation and sustainable use of resources that have turned out to be top-of-the-line management policies and models worth imitating.
A case in point is the certification of sustainable tourism now being implemented all across Latin America in a piecemeal fashion under the sponsorship of German cooperation agency GTZ and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Mrs. Rodriguez hopes the fair could lay the underpinnings of a permanent institution bankrolled with the help of international cooperation and bent on seeking solutions to environmental problems.
Mrs. Gonzalez also explained the event will feature bargaining tables and some 35 Costa Rican companies that will set up exhibition stands. A team of UNDP experts will attend the meeting.
This is the first environmental fair ever planned on a national scale by the United Nations Development Program, though a similar event took place in Colombia's Bogota last year.
Interest overseas in the Costa Rican experience has been so immense that we're right now weighing the possibility of organizing a second fair to lure friends of the environment elsewhere around the world, Mrs. Gonzalez asserted.
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