Distinguished
Executive Director of INECE, Dr. Durwood Zaelke;
Distinguished
participants;
Ladies
and gentlemen:
On
behalf of the government and the ministry of environment and energy
of Costa Rica, it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to this
sixth meeting of the International Conference on Environmental
Compliance and Enforcement organized jointly by INECE with the
support of many international environmental related organizations
and institutions.
This
is probably one of the forums that would provide important inputs
to the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development to
be held in Johannesburg later this year. And I said this because
many of the findings coming from the experience obtained during
the ten years term after Rio indicates that there have been a
lot of opportunities to international and national dialogue, that
there have been several global and international legal and political
instruments, both binding and non binding, and there have also
been a lot of international and national initiatives oriented
towards a common objective: obtaining sustainable development,
but there is still a feeling that a lot more of commitment and
concrete results are to be expected, both at the national and
international levels.
Environmental enforcement and compliance is a relatively new area
in many developing countries. Many of our countries have experienced
a deep legal and institutional transformation in the recent years
in order to follow "the trends of the fashion" in environmental
issues, by implementing new and more strict legislation and creating
new institutional settings is order to achieve goals shaped by
the international community but where developing countries participated
in a limited way and whose legal and institutional frameworks
probably had not reached the level of maturity required for such
a transformation.
The
capacity of the countries to guarantee the fulfillment of the
regulations included as a result of many legislative improvements
as well as legal international developments is without any doubt,
one of the critical elements of environmental governance. As in
many other fields in modern politics, environment could no longer
be seen as a responsibility of the governments only. Civil society
and private sector in particular, have a particular role to play
in achieving national sustainability goals. In this regard, raising
awareness among the different actors and sectors of the society,
both a the national and international levels, should be seen as
a strategic tool to promote the attitudinal changes required by
a new culture, a culture that requires a clear commitment from
all towards a goal that is a global responsibility: environmental
sustainability for the current and new generations.
Achieving
environmental enforcement and compliance is also one of the issues
to be addressed from an intersectorial perspective: not only from
the executive, but from the legislative and judicial branches
of the government. Harmonization of both, legislation and practices
is critical to provide a clear message to all interested sectors.
The provision of resources to increase the capabilities of the
governments to obtain the desired goals should be addressed from
a development perspective.
During
the last two decades, Costa Rica has been devoting a lot of efforts
and resources to the consolidation of a system of conservation
areas and to the payment of environmental services as a mechanism
to guarantee the sustainability of biodiversity and forest related
resources to the new generations. During the last decade, new
issues have raised to the international consciousness and the
country is still on the process to find out the right paths to
be followed in order to fulfill all the society expectations.
The results of this conference would be an additional input to
the search for knowledge, but in particular to the search for
successful experiences already gained.
Again,
welcome to Costa Rica. It is our hope that all of you have the
opportunity to widely contribute to the discussions of the very
interesting areas to be covered during the conference, and also
to enjoy at least a bit of our country.
Thank
you very much
