April 19, 2002

Press Release: Environmental Enforcement Eyed at International Meeting
By Lauren Wolkoff
Published in the Tico Times

Some 200 environmental law experts from 84 countries around the globe descended on San José this week with one shared goal: to find ways to strengthen local and international environmental legislation.

The sixth conference of the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) brought together government officials, legal experts and representatives from non-governmental organizations for five intense days of workshops, field visits and networking.

Participants filled the Real Continental Hotel in the western San José district of Escazú from April 15-19 for the bi-annual conference, and on Wednesday ventured into the field to view a sampling of this country’s most successful environmental initiatives.

Site visits included an environmentally friendly coffee cooperative in San Ramon, the non-governmental organization FUNDECOR that emphasizes market-based forest conservation and the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio), among others.

“What’s amazing about these conferences is how eager people are to talk to and learn from each other,” said Durwood Zaelke, director of the INECE Secretariat and president of the Center for International Environmental Law.

“They seem to want to turn the music down and learn everything about the problems faced in other parts of the world,” he said.

Organizers emphasized the importance of strengthening international relationships and environmental agencies to better “police our global environment,” said Sylvia Lowrance, INECE co-chair and acting assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Our vision is all the same: to achieve a cleaner environment,” said Charles Sebukeera, another co-chair and the director of information and monitoring at Uganda’s National Environment Authority.

Yet, achieving that vision can be drastically skewed depending on where you are from, participants readily pointed out.

“In the first place, a lot of these models come from places and systems where the word “enforcement” actually means something. We are not all on even ground,” said Rolando Castro, an environmental attorney with the Costa Rican legal organization CEDARENA.

“The consensus is that Costa Rica does not have coherent, integrated, sustainable development policies,” said Carolina Mauri, an environmental attorney who helped coordinate the event from Costa Rica’s end.

“The major challenge here is lack of resources, because we have agencies here with very important responsibilities and no resources to fulfill their obligation,” she said.

One example of how the economic disparity between rich and poor countries can affect environmental enforcement is the U.S. Department of Justice, which has a crew of some 35 people specifically to prosecute environmental crimes.

Costa Rica, on the other hand, barely has enough resources to adequately review each environmental impact study submitted by prospective investors.

“Poorer countries have to be more creative. But for environmental legislation to be effective, both government regulation and voluntary initiatives must work together,” said Lawrence Pratt, associate director of the Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development (INCAE).

The conference was to culminate Friday afternoon with the presentation of the co-chairs’ statement outlining the conference’s findings and the role of INECE in the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in August in Johannesburg, South Africa.

For more information or to view documents from the conference, visit INECE’s Web site at www.inece.org.

Lauren Wolkoff
The Tico Times
San José, Costa Rica
506.258.1558
506.233.6378
www.ticotimes.net