At a recent public hearing before Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court, colloquially known as Sala IV, environmental activists and their legal representatives presented evidence to support their claims against RIU Hotels, a major international resort chain owned by a powerful Spanish consortium that includes Mexican and German investors. According to the plaintiffs, the RIU hotel at Matapalo Beach endangers up to 200 nesting sites of the green and black sea turtles.

At the heart of the case is the Regulatory Plan of the Carrillo canton, which allegedly benefited RIU hotels by allowing their massive resort properties to be developed close to known sea turtle nesting sites along the Pacific coast of Guanacaste. The Confraternidad Guanacasteca (Guanacaste Fraternity) is leading the constitutional complaint. This group takes the name of a former regional political party that supported sociopolitical concepts such as minimum wages and the suffrage movement in Costa Rica.

According to the plaintiffs, the Carrillo plan issued building permits to RIU hotels without taking into consideration the following facts presented to Sala IV:

• The Chelonia mydas species of tropical marine turtles is known to keep up to 264 nesting sites on Matapalo Beach where a RIU resort was built.
• Disrupting the massive arrival and nesting of the green and black sea turtles could have repercussions in other beaches such as Playa Grande, Playa Ostional and Playa Cabuyal. All these beaches make the Pacific Northwest of Costa Rica the world’s most important sea turtle nesting site in the world.
• When the Environmental and Technical Secretariat of Costa Rica reviewed the Carrillo plan, questions arose with regard to environmental impact. The answers provided, however, may have been cooked up, obfuscated and generally greenwashed by consultants and others who were allegedly on RIU’s take.
• An important report by a geologist that clearly showed the natural history of nesting sites in Guanacaste was mysteriously ignored by the Carrillo plan and members of the cantonal council.

The Costa Rica Star has previously reported on this and other questionable acts of greenwashing. Now that both plaintiffs and defendant RIU have presented their arguments before Sala IV, the constitutional magistrates are expected to issue their opinion before the end of the year.

Source: El Pais