Harken also came under fire last year for having been slow to clean up gasoline and petroleum leaks from some six storage tanks in Florida in the 1980s. The leaks threatened drinking water supplies and ocean waters of the Florida Keys. According to the Symposium scientists, Costa Rica has many of the most important sea turtle nesting beaches in the Western Hemisphere. The communities along Costa Rica s Caribbean coast make their living predominantly from ecotourism and local fishing. Each year, more than 50,000 tourists visit Tortuguero National Park to see nesting green turtles, and more than 100,000 visitors enjoy the beaches and lowland forests of Cahuita National Park.
Sea turtles are important cultural icons for many indigenous cultures.
Costa Rica has recognized its precious Caribbean environment by creating six sanctuaries along its Caribbean coast, including Tortuguero and Cahuita National Parks and Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge. When Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodr guez was inaugurated in 1998, his first order of business was to sign an international agreement that his government would collaborate with neighboring governments in Nicaragua and Panama to conserve sea turtles, ensuring the participation of all local user groups in sea turtle management. Under his administration, protection of turtles has never been stronger, with poaching of nesting turtles and their eggs reduced to a minimum in recent years. Thus, conservation-minded Costa Ricans are baffled that their government would risk exposing its fragile coastal and marine resources, and its globally important sea turtles and nesting beaches to the threats posed by oil development. A leak or spill, like the recent major incidents off Brazil and the Gal pagos, would devastate the abundant yet fragile biological resources of the region.