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This summer I attended the United Nations Ocean Conference, cosponsored by France and Costa Rica, to pressure Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles to complete the Cocos-Galapagos Swimway.
The C-G Swimway is a novel approach to marine conservation first introduced by my organization, Turtle Island Restoration Network , and now supported by more than by more than 150 NGOs, 350-plus scientists from 41 nations, and more than 10,000 members of the public who have expressed their written support to the Costa Rican government.
Map of Proposed Cocos-Galapagos Swimway. Credit MigraMar.org
Most marine protected areas are designated within a specific country’s territorial waters to protect species who generally do not migrate far. The C-G Swimway, by contrast, would be a bilateral marine protected area that would connect Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park to Ecuador’s Galápagos Marine Reserve to protect highly migratory species. When completed it will stretch approximately 400 miles and encompass a large swath of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean that’s under the control of these two nations through their respective and overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones.
More importantly, it will protect at least four species of endangered sharks and two species of endangered sea turtles, including endangered hammerhead and whale sharks and critically endangered leatherback sea turtles, all of whom migrate along the Swimway and play an integral ecological role in the health of these two UN Biosphere Reserves. The two reserves share many species in common, including vast schools of scalloped hammerhead sharks.
Hammerhead sharks at Cocos Island. Photo: Edwar Herreno
Ecuador protected its half of the Swimway in 2021 by enlarging its no-fishing zone to the border of Costa Rica. Shockingly, Costa Rica has failed to act.
While Costa Rica has a long rested on its reputation of being one the “greenest” and most democratic nations in Latin America — 25% of its land is protected in national parks and other reserves, and the country abolished its military forces in 1948 — its failure to act and opposition signals a new alarming chapter.
Today many North Americans are surprised to learn that Costa Rica’s vast ocean area — 11 times larger than its land mass — and its marine wildlife are highly exploited by industrial fishers that have more influence over policy under Chaves than before. This threatens the ocean areas and the ecological integrity of Costa Rica’s marine ecosystems.
And now they’re under even greater threat.
Not only have Chaves’s actions been contrary to Costa Rica’s longstanding status as an environmental and democratic leader, but the president has taken undemocratic actions to tamp down criticism — ranging from the public to university scientists and media, according to environmental and civil rights leaders within Costa Rica.
Sound familiar? It appears Chaves is taking his cues from President Donald Trump.
In what can only be called boastful greenwashing, he basked in the limelight of the UN gathering of over 15,000 attendees, serving as cochair of the conference and addressing the delegates in boastful platitudes about Costa Rica’s ocean-protection actions. In reality his administration has stalled, stymied, and rolled back protections for sharks, sea turtles, and other marine species found in the country’s jurisdictional waters and failed to take action to complete the Swimway.
Costa Rica President Chaves at United Nations Ocean Conference, Nice France. Photo: Lynette McLamb
For example, President Chaves took credit for the 2021 Costa Rica expansion of Cocos Island National Park and the Bicentennial Marine Management Area, which has allowed Costa Rica to falsely misrepresent that it has met its 30×30 ocean protection goal, a global initiative by over 100 countries to conserve at least 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean areas by 2030.
But the policies to protect the 38,600 square mile marine area — created by Chaves’ predecessor — have stalled under his leadership, as he ignores a multitude of scientific studies indicating the importance of protecting the Cocos-Galapagos Swimway. More than three years into his presidency, the area remains a marine “protected” area in name only — with no regulations in place to restrict fishing or other harmful activities that are driving critically endangered leatherback turtles and sharks toward extinction.
Chaves’ rhetoric at the UN Ocean Conference was slammed as hypocritical by legislators, environmentalists and Costa Rican civil society. To tamp down dissent, his administration even obstructed renowned Costa Rican marine scientists’ UN accreditations, having them withdrawn to thwart democratic political discourse .
Some are now referring to Chaves as a “mini-Trump.” In June Costa Rica’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal banned him from participating in next year’s 2026 election campaign, highlighting the ongoing tensions between the his administration and Costa Rica’s judicial branches.
And in July Costa Rica’s Supreme Court asked the country’s legislature to strip Chaves of his legal immunity so he can stand trial on corruption charges .
Costa Rican environmental activist Randall Arauz, a recipient of Goldman Environmental Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious environmental awards, was on hand to criticize the Chaves administration for its failure to protect marine wildlife.
“How can the Costa Rican government claim to be protecting our oceans,” he said, “when they ignore a Supreme Court order to end the fishing of endangered hammerhead sharks and continue to allow commercialization of marine wildlife for the profit of a few and at the expensive of healthy marine ecosystems? Hypocrisy in an understatement. They are in the pockets of the industrial fishing industry.”
“Without strict regulations to eliminate fishing along the Swimway, sea turtles and sharks will continue to die on longline hooks,” said Ken Bouley, executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network.
Costa Rica can and hopefully will live up to its longstanding international reputation as an environmental leader by completing the Swimway and banning the commercial exploitation of endangered hammerhead sharks. Unfortunately, it may have to await the will of Costa Rican citizens to elect a truly green president in next year’s election.
Three ways to take action: Tell Chaves to complete the Cocos-Galapagos and protect two UN Biosphere Reserves.
Previously in The Revelator:
The Shocking Truth About Sloths