Wednesday October 25, 2023
The Costa Rican Times —
In a remarkable display of responsiveness, Costa Rica’s fisheries governing board, Incopesca, with the instrumental public pressure from Congresswoman Kattia Cambronero and FECOP, a pivotal sport fishing lobby group, acted swiftly to safeguard the integrity of the country’s marine ecosystem. The issue at hand was a regulation that would have enabled commercial fleets to exploit bait within Costa Rica’s three Pacific gulfs. This unsettling possibility loomed like a tempest over the nation’s marine conservation efforts, threatening to unleash a catastrophic wave of incidental sailfish killings within these sensitive marine habitats.
The contentious regulation in question bore the risk of drastically augmenting the incidental slaughter of vast quantities of sailfish. Such a scenario would have been an inevitable consequence of permitting all commercial fleets unrestricted use of live baits within a 30-mile zone from the coast. A significant revision to this regulation was urgently necessary to prevent the looming ecological disaster, and to our relief, the authorities did not disappoint.
Traditionally, Incopesca’s approach had been more cautious and methodical, often opting for “temporary” decisions that could extend over several years, pending comprehensive studies and reviews. However, this instance witnessed a decisive and expeditious action that was nothing short of revolutionary in the realm of bureaucratic responsiveness.