The Limón branch of the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the alleged construction of an airstrip inside the Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge, as well as possible crimes of illegal logging and changes in land use affecting forested areas, as confirmed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The site under investigation is located at the southern end of the Refuge, in an area classified as “minimal or no intervention” called Bonife, which borders the Sixaola River along the border with Panama. The investigation stems from a request submitted by the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), which includes photographs showing the plain at the southern tip of the Refuge, near the winding Sixaola River and relatively close to its mouth at the sea.
The images also document land cleared for bananas and other crops, ditches or drains, and a 3.8-kilometer-long straight road. The Gandoca-Manzanillo Refuge, characterized by mixed ownership and land-use restrictions, spans 5,013 hectares of terrestrial area from the mouth of the Cocles River to the Sixaola River on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, passing through the towns of Manzanillo and Gandoca.
Although the Bonife area is designated as a zone of “minimal or no intervention,” SINAC detected environmental damage via aerial surveillance of difficult-to-access areas. According to a complaint filed by officials in 2022, the site shows evidence of commercial tree cutting, land use changes, the construction of canals in wetlands, unauthorized access roads, and illegal dam construction.
The Bonife sector is part of a flooded yolillo forest, a palm species typical of warm climate, within the Gandoca wetland and the Sixaola River’s alluvial plain (Gandoca-Sixaola Wetland), according to the 2017–2026 Regama General Management Plan. Regarding wetland damage, SINAC reported that “within the Border Strip, affecting wetlands, State Natural Heritage lands, and Ramsar sites, a 3,800-meter-long road has been constructed, with an average width of 5 meters of ballast-bearing surface.”
The remainder consists of compacted earth built with automotive machinery. SINAC emphasized that no authorization or environmental impact assessments were issued by the State or the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA).
In 2020, the Legislative Assembly passed the Law to Disable Unauthorized Airstrips (No. 9902), empowering authorities to destroy or disable illegal airstrips on public or private land by reforesting, moving earth, or using explosives. During the law’s discussion, the Ministry of Public Security reported identifying over 140 unauthorized airstrips, with intelligence support from U.S. and Panamanian authorities.
