Embrujarte Art Fair
Dec. 2-6, Avenida Escazú, next to CIMA Hospital, Escazú. 

13th Open-Air Art Fair
With about 300 artists, Dec. 2-6, 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Plaza Roosevelt, San Pedro, 2280-9121, 8383-3518. 

Film Festival
“Sans toit ni loi” (France), Dec. 2; “Morvern Callar” (Spain), Dec. 9; “La mujer sin cabeza” (Argentina), Dec. 16; all at 6 p.m., Contemporary Art and Design Museum, CENAC.

The official first day of tourism high season began Tuesday, as Dec. 1 normally marks the day that many hotels across the country hike rates in expectation of an increased amount of tourists during the four-month stretch from December through April.

But this year might be a little different.

Harry Bodaan, the owner of La Mansión Inn in the central Pacific town of Quepos, says he will delay the seasonal price hike almost through the end of the month, hoping to attract more guests during the first weeks of December. Judging by the state of tourism, other tourism businesses may follow suit.

Due to the worldwide economic crisis, the past three months have been particularly difficult for Costa Rican tourism businesses. In September and October, tourism numbers were the lowest in years, including a drop of over 12,000 tourists in October 2009 versus October 2008. With the atypical fluctuations in the numbers of tourists, businesses plan to alter strategies for the upcoming months, as economic instability has left them unsure of what to expect.

“Everybody was doing well for the year until about August. The last 90 days the bottom dropped out,” said Harry Bodaan, owner of La Mansión Inn in the central Pacific town of Quepos, a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Manuel Antonio. “It's showed us that we can't rest on our laurels and expect tourism to stay up. It's time to roll up our sleeves and work hard to promote our region (Manuel Antonio) to markets that have not been exploited.”

Bodaan said the area business associations are promoting the region at international events, such as at a boat show in Fort Lauderdale, in the U.S. state of Florida, last week.

“The U.S. economy is hurting and people are hanging on to their money tighter than usual,” Bodaan said. “We've learned it's important to be marketing at all times, as we've seen others who stood by idly expecting tourists to come have been hit pretty hard by the recession.”

According to the Costa Rican Tourism Board, just over 1.59 million tourists visited the country from January through October 2009. Though the final two months of the year have yet to be tallied, it is widely understood that overall tourism figures will see a decrease from the banner year of 2008, when nearly 2.1 million tourists came to Costa Rica.

See the Dec. 4 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

Emissions buster: Alvaro Umaña, Costa Rica's former environment minister, will head the country's delegation at next week's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, during which Costa Rica plans to place hefty demands for the industrialized world to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Ronald Reyes | Tico Times

Although global climate change policy negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark have been downplayed in recent weeks, Costa Rica will place hefty demands on the table at next week's conference in northern Europe.

The Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET) said Tuesday that developed and industrialized countries, such as the United States, must reduce emissions by at least 45 percent before the year 2020. At the talks, Costa Rican negotiators will demand technological and financial support for developing nations to adapt to climate change and will insist that a new agreement include accords for forest conservation, wording that was left out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Costa Rica's chief negotiator at the talks, former environment minister Alvaro Umaña, claimed that carbon sequestration by planting and preserving trees is the “cheapest and easiest way to reduce emissions.”

Umaña proposes that countries adopt mechanisms to reverse deforestation and implement initiatives such as Costa Rica's subsidies for environmental services, a program that uses a 3.5 percent gas tax to pay rural residents and farmers to plant trees and protect forests on their property. The program has contributed to Costa Rica's ability to reforest more than 30 percent of its national land in the past two decades.

Long term, Costa Rican delegates will ask countries to cut emissions by 95 percent before 2050 compared to 1990 levels. Representatives will also recommend penalties for countries that do not comply with specific emission reduction goals.

The original goal of the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was to draft a legally binding treaty that would establish specific emission reduction and precise figures for financial aid. But at a Nov. 15 summit in Singapore, world leaders decided against a legal pact and will instead seek short-term, general consensus to cut greenhouse gas emissions and provide economic assistance to developing countries. Firm global agreements will follow in 2010, according to news reports.

While Umaña acknowledged that none of his demands will have legal legs this time around, he said the recently awarded time extension “should not be used as an excuse not to act.”

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias has yet to announce whether he will attend the talks, which will take place from Dec. 7 to 18.

See the Dec. 4 print or digital edition for more on the Copenhagen climate talks.

Former Costa Rican President Rodrigo Carazo is in a delicate condition following a quadruple by-pass surgery on Nov. 30, health officials reported Tuesday.

Carazo, who served as president between 1978 and 1982, was hospitalized on Thursday after experiencing heart problems.

Doctors at Hospital México made the decision to operate on him on Sunday, and, despite reporting a successful five-hour operation, the Social Security System issued a statement Tuesday saying that Carazo “was not responding in the way (medical practitioners) had hoped for.”

Douglas Montero, general director of Hospital México, said medical personnel are doing everything they can to keep him alive.

“Don Rodrigo has experienced a multi-organ failure, a product of certain post-operative complications, which has worsened his overall state of health,” he said.

Carazo, 82, is widely known for his work in founding the University for Peace and for inaugurating the hydroelectric project at the north-central Lake Arenal. He served as president of Costa Rica during a worldwide economic crisis in which the country experienced significant financial instability, soaring unemployment and steep devaluation of the local currency.

In recent years, he worked as an ardent opponent to the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States, which was approved by Costa Rican voters in a nationwide referendum in October 2007 but which Costa Rica did not join until January of this year.