Costa Mar's mangrove belt doubles in size as restoration accelerates

Puerto Azul — The Costa Mar Regional Assembly voted unanimously on Thursday to allocate ₣12 million toward a three-year expansion of the Cinturón Verde mangrove restoration project, a program that has already returned 2,400 hectares of coastal wetland to ecological function since its launch in 2022. The expansion will bring the total restoration footprint to 4,800 hectares and establish six new propagation nurseries along the delta, where salinity and tidal patterns have historically supported dense mangrove forest.

Regional Governor Elena Cortés announced the investment at a ceremony in the Barrio del Río, where volunteers and civil service workers have been replanting seedlings since dawn. The mangroves, she said, are not merely an environmental asset but a shield against the intensifying storm seasons that have damaged the region's tourism infrastructure in three of the past five years. The restoration effort also creates stable employment for approximately 280 workers in rural communities that have seen fishing yields decline over the past decade.

The initiative has drawn attention from the Federal Assembly, where the governing coalition has begun to cite Costa Mar's mangrove work as a model for inter-regional climate adaptation. But questions remain about long-term funding, the resilience of replanted stands in the face of warming ocean temperatures, and whether the pace of restoration can outrun the regional loss of natural forest cover to agricultural expansion.