Manuel Antonio – Facing Up To Middle Age

By Leland Baxter-Neal

Edwin Azofeifa, a former drug addict, and Yadira Orozco, a single mother, share a blanket along the sidewalk leading to Manuel Antonio National Park where they sell jewelry, small souvenirs and towels.

Mr Azofeifa says the work helped him get clean. Ms Orozco says a good weekend in the tourism high season can bring in $600 to $700.

“Here, there is opportunity,” says José Montealegre, a taxi driver who left San José to come to the area, where he says he earns three times what he did before.

Manuel Antonio National Park, the lifeblood for these and thousands of others that live and work around the Central Pacific tourist destination, turned 35 this week. But as tourism booms, many are taking the moment to look at the challenges the park is facing, as well as its success.

Mauricio Hernández, by title Manuel Antonio’s Administrative Coordinator and in practice the second in charge behind the park’s administrator, took the occasion to call for more Costa Ricans, and in particular local Quepos residents, known as quepeños, to visit the park.

“Thirty five years ago, this community fought to make this area a park,” Mr Hernández says. “Of all the people the park now receives, a small part are Costa Ricans, and an even smaller number are from Quépos. This was their parents’ fight.”

© Leland Baxter-Neal

Of the more than 201,000 people to visit Manuel Antonio so far this year, less than a quarter, or 48,000, were Costa Ricans.

Manuel Antonio was founded, Hernández continues, after the government seized the land from foreigners that had bought the large swaths of property and “were not letting the locals visit the beaches.”

“Perhaps they didn’t know the big step they were taking for conservation. For them it was a park to visit because it was really pretty,” he says. “The importance is to recognize and let them know what the park is, and that it is for everybody.”

Stretching more than 1750 hectares (4300 acres) on land, and encompassing another 530 square kilometers (204 square miles) of ocean, Manuel Antonio is Costa Rica’s smallest national park. On land, a series of trails take tourists through tropical forest to calm, half-moon beaches.

The park is populated by white-faced capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys and one of Costa Rica’s last enclaves of the endangered mono tití, or squirrel monkey. Sloths are easily found overhead, while other examples of the 109 mammal species that call the park home can occasionally be found in the brush.

At sea, Manuel Antonio includes several small islands that are home to a wide variety of birds, and dolphins; whales and sea turtles are among some of the more eye-catching sea life that spend time in the park’s waters.

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“We saw crazy animals,” says US tourist Justin Covillon, visiting the park on a trip from Las Vegas, Nevada with some friends. “It’s really different; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“We came here for the natural beauty,” adds friend Danny Beard. “This is probably the best trip of our lives.”

Many of those who know the park well, however, see danger brewing.

Agriculture in years past destroyed much of the forest surrounding Manuel Antonio, meaning the animal populations — monkeys in particular — are being contained to a small area, becoming genetically isolated without other populations to mate with. This can lead to disease, and eventually, extinction. According to Mr Hernández, the monkeys’ genes are already being affected, and their populations are falling.

The decades of foot traffic to the park — now reaching as many as 900 visitors in a day, or more — has also accustomed the monkeys to human presence. For the tourist, this means plenty of opportunities for close up photo-ops. It has also meant the monkeys have developed a taste for human food. Though park guards and volunteers now actively work to keep visitors from feeding the monkeys, the crafty creatures are often seen raiding the picnic baskets and backpacks of unaware sunbathers.

The problem extends outside the park boundaries, as well.

© Leland Baxter-Neal

“The same hotel owners and tourists have changed the monkeys’ diets,” Mr Hérnandez says. “They have become lazy… They know that from 6 to 8 there’s breakfast in that hotel, and from 12 to 2, lunch in this one.”

Mr Hérnandez also worries about the encroaching development — “we have no buffer zone,” he says — and sewage runoff in the creek all visitors cross to enter the park.

Matthew Cook, who heads up the local environmental organization Fund For Costa Rica, has launched a campaign to crack down on sewage leaks in the area, and is raising funds to replace the park’s toilets with “non-polluting dry compost toilets.”

“In honor of the 35th birthday of the Manuel Antonio National Park I would like to invite all of you to help take the first step toward cleaning up the sewage which is contaminating the park,” Mr Cook said in an email sent out this week.

But despite the challenges, Mr Hérnandez says the park’s overall health “is good. But it could always be better.”

The health of the business community outside the park, however, appears to be thriving. A marina is under construction in Quepos and property values are rising. The area’s Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, as well as the parallel Manuel Antonio Group (MAG) — an organization functioning much like a chamber of commerce – have more than 100 businesses affiliated between the two.

© Leland Baxter-Neal

“It is very attractive here. In one day you can go on a rafting tour, and then in the afternoon go horseback riding. The mountains are close, and so are the beaches and aquatic activities like scuba diving,” says Miguel Rojas, owner of Bluefin Sportfishing and president of MAG. “The only thing we’re missing is a volcano.”

Mr Rojas also notes that a zoning plan for the area, known as a plan regulador, is in the works and expected soon.

“That is going to regulate construction and areas, so it will take a way a little of the concern that there is building in areas where they shouldn’t be,” Mr Rojas says.

Mr Rojas is also looking forward to the first ever Expo Manuel Antonio, a five-day tourism fair expected to bring as many as 150 buyers to Manuel Antonio next August.

“It’s not only promoting and selling Quepos and Manuel Antonio. We are talking about the whole Central Pacific. A triangle, not like Bermuda, but from Los Sueños to Dominical and the high mountain area of Los Santos,” Mr Rojas says, adding that two other tradeshows — ExpoVerde and ExpoProveedores — will be going on at the same time in Manuel Antonio.