The United Nations Ocean Conference was co-sponsored by Costa Rica and France took place in Nice in 9-13 April 2025 and TIRN was there to turn up the pressure on Costa Rica to complete the Cocos-Galapagos Swimway.
In the days leading up to the conference, TIRN founder Todd Steiner wrote and co-authored two opinion editorials (op-eds) with scientists in Ecuador and Costa Rica published in two of Costa Rica’s leading newspapers, Delfino (in Spanish) and Tico Times (in English).
TIRN also attempted to deliver more than 11,000 open letters from citizens around the world, 53 non-governmental organizations and more than 348 from 41 different nations, but Costa Rican Consul Generals in Los Angeles and Houston refused to meet with TIRN representatives.
While Costa Rica President Rodrigo Chaves Robles basked in the limelight of the gathering of over 15,000 attendees, as the co-chair of the UN Conference, and spoke in platitudes about how great Costa Rica’s ocean protection actions are, in reality his administration has stalled, stymied and rolled back protections for sharks, sea turtles and other marine species found in its jurisdictional waters.
President Chavez took credit for the 2021 Costa Rica expansion of Cocos Island National Park and the Bicentennial Marine Management Area (BMMA), which together has allowed Costa Rica to falsely misrepresent that it has met its 30-30 ocean protection goal, a a global initiative to conserve at least 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean areas by 2030, agreed to by over 100 countries.
In reality under Chavez, policies to protect the 38,600 square mile BMMA has stalled, as he ignores a multitude of scientific studies indicating the importance of protecting the Swimway. More than three years into his presidency, the area remains a marine ‘protected’ area (MPA) in name only– with no regulations in place to restrict fishing or other harmful activities that are driving critically endangered leatherback turtles and sharks toward extinction.
Chavez rhetoric at the UN Ocean Conference was slammed as hypocritical by legislators, environmentalists and Costa Rican civil society. To tamp down dissent, his administration even obstructed renowned Costa Rican marine scientists UN accreditations, having them withdrawn to thwart democratic political discourse (read more here). Some have compared Chavez anti-democratic actions to tendencies now occurring in the US, referring to him as a “mini-Trump.”
Former long-time TIRN staffer Randall Arauz, now with Marine Watch International, also criticized the Chavez administration for its failure to protect marine wildlife.
“How can the Costa Rican government claim to be protecting our oceans, when they ignore a Supreme Court order to end the fishing of endangered hammerhead sharks and continue to allow commercialization of marine wildlife for the profit of a few and at the expensive of healthy marine ecosystems? Hypocrisy in an understatement. They are in the pockets of the industrial fishing industry,” said Aaruz
Chaves term as President is coming to an end this year, and if he fails to act, TIRN has vowed to make completion of the Swimway an issue in the 2026 Presidential elections.
“Without strict regulations to eliminate fishing along the Swimway, sea turtles and sharks will continue to die on longline hooks,” said Todd Steiner and founder of TIRN.
He continued, “Ecuador enacted protections of its portion of the Swimway in 2021, but to date, Costa Rica has failed to take the necessary actions to ensure the protections necessary to ensure the long-term survival of these interconnected marine ecosystem of these UN Biosphere Reserves. We call on Costa Rica to take immediate action!”
In the meantime, TIRN will continue to increase the scientific foundation underlying the need for the Swimway , while expanding the coalition of scientists, NGOs and citizens around the world demanding Costa Rica take action to protect endangered turtles, sharks and the two of the world’s premiere UN Biosphere Reserves diversity hotspots.
As of 6/25/25
Alert: 11,338
Scientists: 348 from 41 different countries
NGOs: 53
