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Presidents Update
September 6, 2007
By: Edward Yurica - President Fuentes Verdes
hola and greetings
It’s a big month around here. All the schools are readying their marching bands, flags and colors are flying, the anticipation of the celebration of Costa Rica Independence on September 15 is palpable. It’s a wonderful feeling.
The level of the lake is rising, we lost a section of the main road between Tilaran and Arenal which changes things a bit and the behind the scenes the wheels turn addressing the garbage dump (it costs 411,544,00 colones or about $800 to do the Analisis de Agua Residual).
I guess with the position of president comes the barrage of issues, opinions, attacks, encouragement, amongst other things. So this month I heard accusations hurled at folks that I finally needed to address for myself and get my head around what I really thought considering developers.
Who and What is a Developer
I remember when there were only two million people here in the garden paradise Costa Rica. It seemed things were perfect and there was plenty of space for everyone. The population is now closing in on five million and country is often described as a developing nation. Well who is developing this nation anyway? Where did all those people come from? How did they get the land they are building on and has it been done one house at a time, or multi house projects, gated communities, welfare housing, etc.?
I am writing as a president of a grass roots environmental group and somehow I knew it was just a matter of time. Somehow I knew that the blurry line between us and them would come to a head if I accepted the model of how things appear to be. Well I don’t accept the idea that one need to choose an enemy to fight by oversimplifying and creating an us and them. Let’s be real about this. It is WE that are in it. It is we that have to figure out how to deal and dance with the issues of increasing populations, of increasing pollution, increasing garbage, limited resources, crime, and corruption and on and on.
So who and what is a developer? Are they the bad guys? Is the real estate agent a developer or at least complicit in development? Is the farmer who sells lots on a portion of the farm a developer? Is the retiree who invests his nest egg into a track of land and builds his estate a developer? Is it the multi national corporation with billions that are the developers? Is it the company that builds a dam to generate power for a country? My point is development along with progress is going to happen regardless, by someone, no matter what you call them. The more important question then becomes is the development that is being undertaken by individuals or cooperation’s or governments or NGO’s, healthy to the local community as well as the larger community of Costa Rica, both now and years from now? Will the humans in charge of these projects look beyond the immediate profitability? Will their actions match their Public Relation words?
Sure there are real estate agents and developers who will knowingly sell a piece of land that can not be built upon. Sure there are farmer/developers who will knowingly sell land with no water or hope of any soon. Sure there are developers who will put in roads with poorly planned drainage that will wash away in a few years, sure there are builder/developers that will put in substandard septic systems. By the same token there are developers that have embraced environmentally sound ways and methods. There are developers who care about the footprint their project leaves on the physical environment as well as the community. Costa Rica as is evidenced by all the recent articles in the newspapers has awakened to the vital issues at hand. There will be people, politics and organizations that will take advantage and exploit in varying degrees to the countries detriment in these times of rapid change.
All I ask is that one not be so quick to say who and what THEM and US are because you just may be one of THEM in this world of WE.
Pura Vida
Edward Yurica Jenkins
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