According to recent declarations from the Costa Rica president, he will not allow oil drills anywhere in the country due to his commitment to the preservation of the environment. He gave these declarations in a surprising way yesterday while attending the presentation of the project for the new rural aqueducts in Costa Rica.
“We will continue with our commitment of not allowing any type of oil drilling or exploration in Costa Rica” said Oscar Arias in this very unusual visit to the congress. Apparently all the rumors heard about possible oil drills were just … rumors that began with declarations from the former minister of Ambiente, Energía y Telecomunicaciones (Minaet), Roberto Dobles, who during a press conference in 2008 addressed the need of exploring the possibility of oil drills in Costa Rica along with China.
In my opinion the preservation of the environment especially in Costa Rica rain forests, beaches and several locations of ecological importance should be the main concern of the government, maybe oil drills can benefit the country economically, but only for a while.
The damage oil drills do to the environment is really hard to compensate and after all Costa Rica is already a paradise, why would you want to compromise that? I salute the president that still knows the real value of its country.
In other news, last night I caught up a HGTV’s House Hunters episode in Costa Rica real estate where a California couple looked for a vacation home in LakeArenal, which is pretty close to Guanacaste. Quite impressive views but they didn’t pick the home I liked.
Hopefully the government starts making plans to develop more projects for real estate in Costa Rica or tourism instead of listening to bad ideas such as oil drills. It would be so sad to see all the beautiful places in Costa Rica damaged just because someone wants to make a few more dollars.