The Costa Rican government invests over U.S. $100 million a year in environmental protection according to information provided by Treasury, the Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) in their study Estimation of Public Expense in Environmental Protection published this March 1st.

The amount is equivalent to a 0.19% of the GNP, and data included information through 2015 of the Central Government, in the future the plan is to include the entire public and private sector. Once the data for the Government in General is accounted for it is expected that the investment reaches close to a 0.5% of the GNP.

Resources were allocated mainly to management of residual waters (39%) and protection of biodiversity and landscapes (37%).

“The results obtained show the National effort for an inclusive and environmentally friendly growth and are evidence of the commitment of our country with the generation of environmental statistics necessary to know with certainty the amount destined to financing prevention, reduction and contamination elimination programs and other forms of environmental degradation. We join in this way the efforts carried out by the Central Bank to record the numbers relating to water, energy and forest accounts”, stated Helio Fallas, first vice-president and Minister of Treasury.

A Committee of Environmental Accounts formed by personnel of five different entities was in charge of this process, these representatives will also form part of the National Council of Environmental Account (CNCA) which must quantify and account for the physical and economic value of natural resources, data that will be used to take adequate decisions for the sustainable development of the country. This Council must also generate indicators that allow the design of politics and tools to improve the management and conservation of the environment and quantify the contribution of the environment in the productive sector.

“This is a result of a process that began in 2017 when we coordinated with different international organisms such as CEPAL and WAVES taking into consideration that environmental topics take more relevance for the development of economic politics,” stated Edgar Gutierrez, Minister of Environment and Energy.

Other activities that the funds go to include research and development, as well as air and climate protection and reduction of noise and vibrations.