Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador Launch Initiative to Fight Organized Crime in the Pacific.
| Autor | Rodriguez, George |
Costa Rica and Panama have teamed up with Ecuador to protect security and the environment in the vast portion of the Pacific Ocean they share. Colombia is expected to join them.
The initiative was launched by Costa Rican Security Minister Gustavo Mata in bilateral meetings during which he underlined the threat posed by organized crime to both security and the environment. The talks, held throughout last year, led to a meeting in November 2017 between environment, defense and security ministers from these countries.
At the gathering in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital, were Mata and Environment and Energy Minister Edgar Gutierrez of Costa Rica; Panamanian Security Vice Minister Jonattan del Rosario and Environment Minister Emilio Sempris; and Ecuadoran Environment Minister Tarsicio Granizo and Defense Minister Patricio Zambrano. Paafico, a foundation made up of Costa Rican, Colombian, and Panamanian environmental fund organizations, acted as the meeting's facilitator.
Defining lines
"The aim of the meeting is for the countries to define the lines of a joint control and surveillance strategy to guarantee the protection of sea spaces," a press release issued on Nov. 22, 2017, by the Costa Rican government explained.
The vast area the meeting focused on is known as Paafico Este Tropical (Tropical Eastern Pacific, PET), covering 2.2 million sq. km that contain about 92% of the Pacific coral reefs, close to 50% of the Pacific mangroves in the Americas, and 72 coastal marine protected areas.
It also comprises islands that the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared World Heritage Sites--Costa Rica's Coco, Panama's Coiba, Colombia's Malpelo and Gorgona, and the Galapagos in Ecuador.
The richness of the marine life the area hosts and the vastness of its waters provide economic and social benefits to all four countries though fishing, tourism, and intense port activity. But PET is also the stage of increasing unlawful activities such as drug trafficking and illegal fishing, which pose a growing security as well as environmental threat.
Naval or police units patrolling those sites regularly intercept fishing vessels operating in violation of these countries' environmental legislation--the islands and much of the marine areas around them have been declared protected zones, in some cases labeled as marine parks.
In the case of Costa Rica, a recently-installed radar on Coco Island has enhanced surveillance over a wide...
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