Moín Port project

A solid majority of Limón residents say that a $1 billion APM Terminals port project will be a positive thing for the impoverished region, according to a survey from Borges y Asociados. The poll results came out soon before the government announced it would restart negotiations with striking dockworkers on Thursday morning.

LIMÓN – Costa Rica's Labor Minister Victor Morales announced that negotiations with the dockworkers union SINTRAJAP would be suspended until its leaders issued a public statement denouncing the burning of President Luis Guillermo Solís' image outside union headquarters in the Caribbean port of Limón on Monday. Negotiations were originally scheduled to continue at the Labor Ministry on Wednesday in San José.

A Tico Times reporter takes a stroll down Limón's main boulevard and asks local residents what they think about a proposed $1 billion Moín Port expansion project at the center of the ongoing controversy.

Both President Luis Guillermo Solís' administration and the Atlantic Port Authority union, SINTRAJAP, dug in their heels after negotiations at Casa Presidencial ended in an impasse Thursday.

Public Security Minister Celso Gamboa announced that police had removed striking stevedores from the docks in Moín and Limón, which handle 80 percent of Costa Rica’s international trade, Wednesday evening with the support of Casa Presidencial.

Costa Rica’s proposed $1 billion Moín port expansion is facing another potential setback as the Atlantic Port Authority’s union began a strike in Limón on Wednesday. SINTRAJAP leaders and some lawmakers believe a provision of the concession grants AMP Terminals a monopoly on handling containers, and therefore threatens stevedores’ jobs.

The Supreme Court’s Civil and Administrative Law Branch recently rejected the final pending appeal against a port renovation and expansion project by APM Terminal, a Maersk subsidiary based in the Netherlands. The lawsuit attempted to block the $1 billion project on the country's Caribbean coast by claiming that APM's exclusive 33-year concession to operate the container terminal is an illegal monopoly.

YAWEPARE, Ecuador – An oil pipeline runs through this village to a Chinese rig at the end of the road. At night, when the rig is pumping, the pipeline is too hot to touch, but villagers say that in the morning it's a good place to dry laundry. That is its only apparent benefit to the families here, members of the Waorani tribe, lured out of the jungle by missionaries more than a generation ago.

Construction of a new cargo dock in the Caribbean port of Moín faced yet another delay over the weekend when union members disrupted a public hearing to discuss details of the project with local residents and dock workers. The meeting was suspended for a second time in less than two months.

Environmentalists worry a nearly $1 billion port expansion plan on the Caribbean coast could damage sensitive ecosystems. Project managers say those concerns are unfounded. A government agency will decide who’s right.