A proposal to open Costa Rica’s national parks to geothermal energy projects was dashed last week by the Legislative Assembly’s environmental commission.
After Libertarian Party legislators, Otto Guevara and Natalia Diaz, introduced the bill (number 19,339) in 2014, the initiative came under fire from a broad range of groups and also municipalities across the country, said the Costa Rican Ecological Federation, or FECON in Spanish, in a press release.
In a statement to the legislature’s agricultural committee in September, Jorge Lobo and Mauricio Alvarez, both from Fecon, said the potential for developing geothermal energy projects outside of national parks should be fully exhausted before turning to disruption of protected lands.
