other key institutions such as MINAE. CRGT had come into existence and flourished under those conditions, but it diminished quickly after he ceased to be its leader.

The new MINAE representative’s tenure as CRGT president was short-lived, and he left the post in 2000. The presidency was assumed at that time by the representative of the Union of Local Governments, who had been providing some leadership in CRGT activities. He had been openly critical of the CRGT’s changed direction and changed relationship with MINAE, being quoted as follows in the press on his disappointment with a CRGT seminar held in 2000: “After 10 years, all they did was tell us that the river is polluted, that there’s deforestation, that we have a sewage problem.... I was expecting something concrete with a series of local and regional projects.” This local government representative had also observed that since MINAE had assumed direction of the CRGT they had failed to keep it active and progressing, and participation in the commission by local governments was dwindling (Dulude 2000).

In late 2001, MINAE reasserted control and replaced the Union of Local Governments representative as CRGT president with a MINAE official. This designation again occurred without consultation of the rest of the CRGT. The MINAE official remains at this time the CRGT coordinator, and is also the MINAE’s Director of National Environmental Programs, a very busy post that consumes considerable time and energy. The additional duty as CRGT president is on top of those other functions and without any additional resources. With considerable effort, the MINAE representative has kept the CRGT alive, but it is clearly functioning at a quite minimal level. It is not clear how much participation in the CRGT is still committed by the member organizations and agencies. Indeed, in interviews with several individuals who are currently designated as representatives to the CRGT, there was a startling difference of views on even the most mundane of questions such as how often the Commission meets and when it last met. Some interviewees said the Commission continues to meet regularly on a bimonthly basis, but others said the Commission has not met in over a year and perhaps nearly two years.

This recent MINAE CRGT president’s office has undertaken some activities in the name of the CRGT, e.g., some research and actions intending to implement economic instruments to promote pollution control, but even some CRGT members were not aware that these were CRGT actions. Moreover, there appears to have been little or no interest on MINAE’s part in following up on the Integrated Natural Resources Management Program for the basin, despite the Interamerican Development Bank’s investment of $1,000,000 in the 1997-98 study mentioned above.

# **6. Participants’ Motivations and Incentives**

One of the most intriguing questions about the Tárcoles basin case is what motivated the creation of the river basin commission in the first place. The municipality of San José, and one official therein, Hubert Mendez, took the lead in convening the initial meetings and workshops that led to the formation of the CRGT. Based on the background paper (Ballestero 2003) and interviews conducted for this project, there appear to be at least three elements of motivation that spurred the municipal government and Mr. Mendez to take these steps. One is Mr. Mendez’ own commitment to the issue of environmentally sustainable urban development, which apparently led him to the issue of maintaining or restoring urban rivers such as those that flow through the upper basin and form the Rio Grande de Tárcoles. Even after leaving his post with the municipality he has continued to 19