Maritime Zone Law

Nicaragua on Tuesday accused El Salvador of maintaining hostile actions in its maritime space in the Pacific Ocean and invited it to resolve eventual...

A Channel 7 TV news report Tuesday accused the Hollywood star of illegally limiting access to a public beach and including public land in the listing for his $29 million estate in Guanacaste. The property’s representative denied any wrongdoing.

A new law passed this month aims to give peace of mind to the locals who have been living in the refuge since before it was declared in 1983.

Two expats in Costa Rica have won an appeal against the local government of Talamanca, which declared the foreigners “personas non grata" in the Caribbean beach town of Puerto Viejo for being “environmentalists,” according to a statement from the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The president said he envisions the moratorium extending to other coastal communities on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. While much of the attention regarding the Maritime Zone Law has focused on the inhabitants of the Caribbean coast, residents on the Pacific coast also are affected.

Of 47 lawmakers present in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday, 42 voted in favor of a bill that will allow thousands of coastal residents in the maritime zone to keep their homes and businesses.

For years along Costa Rica’s azure coasts, thousands of men and women have cast their nets into the ocean, which has returned to them a humble subsistence via artisanal fishing.

A peaceful protest over land rights in Costa Rica’s maritime zone sparked a violent backlash from police on the Pacific coast last Monday, as anti-riot officers used tear gas to remove dozens of protesters from the Inter-American Highway in Puntarenas.