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Pesticide use can impact not only cultivated land, but also protected ecosystems that receive pesticide inputs due to aquatic connectivity or atmospheric transport from agricultural regions. In Costa Rica's Caribbean lowlands, pesticides applied to banana and pineapple plantations are a potential source of pollution to ecological reserves. Macroinvertebrates and fish are both potentially useful bioindicators of agrochemical pollution in aquatic systems, and our goal was to determine whether three common stream consumer species (one fish and two aquatic insect species) could serve as bioindicators for the organophosphate pesticide ethoprophos. We identified thresholds at which ethoprophos impacts the survival (LC50) and observed behavior (LOEC – lowest observed effect concentration) for each species. The LC50 of the guppy Priapichthys annectens was 1530 µg/L, with observable behavioral changes occurring at 1000 µg/L. Insects were more sensitive: the mayfly Traverella holzenthali had an LC50 of 15 µg/L and an LOEC of 2.5 µg/L, and the caddisfly Leptonema sp. had an LC50 of approximately 30 µg/L and an LOEC of 5 µg/L. The LC50 values are notably higher than ambient concentrations recorded from polluted Costa Rican streams and suggest that these taxa are not ideal indicator species. However, the lower LOEC values (in the same order of magnitude as ambient concentrations) highlight the potential ecological importance of behavioral modification due to pesticides. Quantifying the thresholds at which common pesticides impact ecosystems is a key step in identifying bioindicator species and protecting tropical biodiversity.
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Regulation by impasse: Pesticide registration, capital and the state in Costa Rica
Costa Rica's prodigious use of pesticides, as well as the burgeoning plantation sector that these agrochemicals support, exacerbates the tensions between extraction and preservation at the heart of the country's development model. We explore these tensions through a study of the country's pesticide registry, the regulatory process to approve active ingredients and formulations for use. After nearly two decades of reform efforts, the registry is widely recognized to be non-functioning: most of the country's pesticides exist in administrative limbo and relatively few new compounds have been approved. Based on extensive interviews and in-depth policy analysis, we construct four phases of reform and use a strategic-relational approach to the state to analyze this process. We conceptualize the registry's gridlock as a form of governance that we term regulation by impasse, an arrangement reproduced through disputes within and between the cognizant ministries, juridical bodies and other regulating authorities, in relation to the shifting strategies and contexts of political economic and wider social forces. We argue that hegemony is tenuously maintained through the registry dispute itself, while revealing the deeply frayed condition of the Costa Rican development model.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2026088
- PAR ID:
- 10439681
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2514-8486
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 901 to 922
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221116742
