Costa Rica Declares "Peace For Nature"
Before becoming an oil enclave, before becoming a land of open pit mining, I plan to initiate a sustained effort to transform Costa Rica into an ecological power. ~ The true fuel and the true gold of the future will be water and oxygen; they will be our aquifers and our forests. Before we declare peace among ourselves and we declare peace among all nations; now we should declare a peace with Nature.
Costa Rica does have a future.
As part of the effort to guarantee this promising future, I want to announce that I have adopted the proposal from a group of young environmentalists that was transmitted to me by Gabriel Quesada, grandson of Víctor Quesada, editor of the Social Guarantees and by my son Fabián and that I will press forward surely and decidedly, to incorporate in the Constitution of the Republic a Chapter on Environmental Guarantees.
As part of this new Chapter in the Constitution, we will create the security of absolute protection for primary forests so that not a single tree there is cut; absolute protection for the aquifers and the rivers; the absolute protection for the coral ecosystems, of the mangroves and the wetlands; the absolute protection of wild fauna and flora. We will create the legal system so that deforested areas will be reforested with native species and to make clear that we won't be an oil enclave or land of open pit mining.
At the same time we will incorporate in this new Chapter of the Constitution all that is necessary to ensure appropriate processes for treatment of solid waste; to begin a systematic process of recycling and to foster the vigorous development of organic agriculture. Added to this, we will guarantee Costa Ricans that technological developments, including the genetic advances, will have to be made in harmony with Nature.
The inclusion of Social Guarantees, moved forward by Dr. Calderón Guardia, gave us social peace; the inclusion of the Chapter of Environmental Guarantees will give us sustainability and survival.
I call on all Costa Ricans, especially the youngest, to help me with this initiative, to contribute with their ideas, to reinforce with their proposals their right to make of this country a sanctuary for Nature and for humanity. Costa Rica has a future and we will assure it."
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