{ "id": "norm-72001", "citation": "Decreto 36980", "section": "norms", "doc_type": "executive_decree", "title_es": "Decreto 36980 sobre Acceso a la Información Ambiental", "title_en": "Decree 36980 on Access to Environmental Information", "summary_es": "El Decreto Ejecutivo N° 36980-MINAET-MAG-MOPT-TUR, del 18 de noviembre de 2011, establece el procedimiento para las municipalidades sobre el acceso a la información relacionada con el cambio de uso del suelo y la cobertura boscosa. Este decreto surge en cumplimiento del artículo 109 de la Ley de Biodiversidad y del artículo 65 de la Ley Forestal, con el fin de garantizar la participación ciudadana informada. Define tres mecanismos principales: consulta pública, publicación en el diario oficial La Gaceta o de circulación nacional, y la publicidad en intranet institucional o Boletín Judicial. Se aplica a permisos de corta de árboles, autorizaciones para condominios y urbanizaciones, y cualquier otro instrumento de planificación que altere la cobertura boscosa. Las municipalidades deben realizar una consulta pública de al menos diez días hábiles para estos permisos, pero el dictamen de la consulta no es vinculante. También se exige mantener un expediente administrativo disponible para los ciudadanos que deseen ejercer sus derechos de participación, creando así un mecanismo de transparencia y democracia ambiental a nivel local.", "summary_en": "Executive Decree No. 36980-MINAET-MAG-MOPT-TUR, of November 18, 2011, establishes the procedure for municipalities regarding access to information related to land-use change and forest cover. This decree was issued in compliance with Article 109 of the Biodiversity Law and Article 65 of the Forestry Law, aiming to ensure informed citizen participation. It defines three main mechanisms: public consultation, publication in the official gazette La Gaceta or a national newspaper, and publicity via institutional intranet or the Judicial Bulletin. It applies to permits for tree cutting, authorizations for condominiums and subdivisions, and any other planning instruments that alter forest cover. Municipalities must hold a public consultation of at least ten business days for such permits, though the consultation's opinion is non-binding. It also requires maintaining an administrative file available to citizens who wish to exercise their participation rights, thus creating a mechanism for transparency and environmental democracy at the local level.", "court_or_agency": "", "date": "18/11/2011", "year": "2011", "topic_ids": [ "forestry-law-7575", "biodiversity-law-7788", "procedural-environmental" ], "primary_topic_id": "procedural-environmental", "es_concept_hints": [ "consulta pública", "cambio de uso del suelo", "cobertura boscosa", "permisos de corta de árboles", "municipalidades", "dictamen no vinculante", "Art. 109 Ley de Biodiversidad" ], "concept_anchors": [ { "article": "Art. 109", "law": "Ley de Biodiversidad" }, { "article": "Art. 65", "law": "Ley Forestal" } ], "keywords_es": [ "acceso a la información ambiental", "consulta pública municipal", "cambio de uso del suelo", "cobertura boscosa", "permisos de corta de árboles", "transparencia ambiental", "Decreto 36980" ], "keywords_en": [ "access to environmental information", "municipal public consultation", "land-use change", "forest cover", "tree-cutting permits", "environmental transparency", "Decree 36980" ], "excerpt_es": "Artículo 1°-El presente Reglamento establece el procedimiento de las municipalidades sobre acceso a la información, en relación con los asuntos en que tenga que decidir sobre cambio de uso del suelo y cobertura boscosa con el fin de hacer efectivos los derechos de participación de los administrados. \n\nArtículo 5°-Las municipalidades deberán hacer una consulta pública cuando se trate de los siguientes permisos:\na) Permisos de corta de árboles.\nb) Autorizaciones para condominios, fraccionamientos y urbanizaciones, en bosques, pastos, tacotales o potreros.\nc) Todo otro instrumento de planificación u ordenamiento territorial que altere o contemple necesariamente la modificación de la cobertura boscosa, existente en el cantón. \n\nArtículo 8°-Las municipalidades siempre deberán realizar la consulta pública prevista en los artículos anteriores, sin embargo, el dictamen que resulte de la misma no será vinculante.", "excerpt_en": "Article 1—This Regulation establishes the procedure for municipalities regarding access to information, in relation to matters where they must decide on land-use change and forest cover, in order to make effective the participation rights of citizens. \n\nArticle 5—Municipalities must hold a public consultation in the case of the following permits:\na) Tree-cutting permits.\nb) Authorizations for condominiums, subdivisions, and developments, in forests, pastures, scrublands or pastures.\nc) Any other planning or land-use instruments that alter or necessarily contemplate the modification of the existing forest cover in the canton. \n\nArticle 8—Municipalities shall always hold the public consultation provided for in the preceding articles; however, the resulting opinion shall not be binding.", "outcome": { "label_en": "Active norm", "label_es": "Norma vigente", "summary_en": "The decree establishes the public consultation and environmental information access procedure for municipalities in decisions on land-use change and forest cover.", "summary_es": "El decreto establece el procedimiento de consulta pública y acceso a la información ambiental para municipalidades en decisiones sobre cambio de uso del suelo y cobertura boscosa." }, "pull_quotes": [ { "context": "Artículo 5", "quote_en": "Municipalities must hold a public consultation in the case of the following permits: a) Tree-cutting permits. b) Authorizations for condominiums, subdivisions, and developments, in forests, pastures, scrublands or pastures. c) Any other planning or land-use instruments that alter or necessarily contemplate the modification of the existing forest cover in the canton.", "quote_es": "Las municipalidades deberán hacer una consulta pública cuando se trate de los siguientes permisos: a) Permisos de corta de árboles. b) Autorizaciones para condominios, fraccionamientos y urbanizaciones, en bosques, pastos, tacotales o potreros. c) Todo otro instrumento de planificación u ordenamiento territorial que altere o contemple necesariamente la modificación de la cobertura boscosa, existente en el cantón." }, { "context": "Artículo 8", "quote_en": "Municipalities shall always hold the public consultation provided for in the preceding articles; however, the resulting opinion shall not be binding.", "quote_es": "Las municipalidades siempre deberán realizar la consulta pública prevista en los artículos anteriores, sin embargo, el dictamen que resulte de la misma no será vinculante." } ], "cites": [], "cited_by": [], "references": { "internal": [], "external": [] }, "source_url": "https://pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=72001&strTipM=TC&nValor3=0", "tier": 2, "_editorial_citation_count": 0, "regulations_by_article": null, "amendments_by_article": null, "dictamen_by_article": null, "concordancias_by_article": null, "afectaciones_by_article": null, "resoluciones_by_article": null, "cited_by_votos": [], "cited_norms": [], "cited_norms_inverted": [], "sentencias_relacionadas": [], "temas_y_subtemas": [], "cascade_only": false, "amendment_count": 0, "body_es_text": "", "body_en_text": "N° 36980\n\nTHE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS\n\nPursuant to the powers conferred by Articles 140, subsections 3) and 18), and 146 of the Political Constitution; Articles 25 section 1), 27 section 1), 28 section 2), subsection b), 103 section 1), sections 2), 4), 5), and 7), subsection c), 112, 113 and 114 of the General Public Administration Act, Law No. 6227 of May 2, 1978; Article 2 of Law No. 7152 of June 5, 1990; Law No. 7554 of October 4, 1995; Law No. 7575 of February 13, 1996; Law No. 7788 of April 30, 1998; Law No. 7779 of April 30, 1998; and Executive Decree No. 25721-MINAE of October 17, 1996.\n\nConsidering:\n\nI.—That the Political Constitution, in its Article 50, establishes that every person has the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment, and that the State will guarantee, defend and preserve that right. Furthermore, it indicates that the law will establish the appropriate restrictions on the exercise of certain rights and freedoms to protect the environment.\n\nII.—That the Organic Environment Act, Law No. 7554 of October 4, 1995, which is the preeminent law in the matter, defines the principles and powers in accordance with which the State shall exercise its protective function over the environment and natural resources, including the State’s obligation to classify environmental variables in order to adopt an environmental qualification instrument, establishing for this purpose the environmental impact assessment (evaluación de impacto ambiental, EIA) process as the technical-scientific analysis that allows the risks or impact that the works, activities or projects may cause or may be causing to the environment to be identified and predicted, as well as to formulate the respective preventive, mitigating and compensatory measures to be followed.\n\nIII.—That the Organic Environment Act, by means of Article 83, created the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental, SETENA) as a body with maximum desconcentration and full technical competence in the matter of EIA, whose purpose is to harmonize the environmental impact of productive activities with environmental sustainability. Therefore, it corresponds to this body to dictate the general guidelines for the conduct of the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process as whole, at all its stages, so that the applicants and the rest of the entities that participate in it, public and private, have clear and precise rules, thus guaranteeing administrative transparency and legal certainty.\n\nIV.—That Law No. 7575 of February 13, 1996, in its Article 3, stipulates that any human activity that alters or destroys elements of the environment or generates residual, toxic or dangerous elements will require an EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental), which must be approved by SETENA. That Law No. 7779 of April 30, 1998, in its Article 19, obliges SETENA to determine those agricultural activities with significant environmental impact that must comply with the requirement of presenting the EIA. That Law No. 7788 of April 30, 1998, in its Article 61, regarding the issue of EIA, defers to the provisions of the Organic Environment Act and the respective regulations.\n\nV.—That to guarantee the adequate implementation of the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process and to facilitate compliance with the regulations indicated, the General Regulations on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Procedures are issued, which are intended to be a flexible, valid and viable instrument without granting discretionary powers to the Administration, promoting the active and responsible participation of the applicant from the initial stage of the process, with the aim of determining from the beginning the true environmental dimension of the works, activity or project subject to assessment.\n\nVI.—That the purpose of these Regulations is to order the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process stages; incorporate the activity of multisectoral and inter-institutional coordination as an inherent element of the EIA; foresee, within the principle of public participation, the integration of adjacent owners into the process; standardize the documentation to be presented for each type of instrument; establish the procedures and deadlines that must be observed by those involved in the process; indicate the environmental control and monitoring mechanisms that guarantee compliance with the established environmental commitments, all within the context of a simplified and efficient administrative process without prior judgment conditioning.\n\nVII.—That the present Regulations repeal the General Regulations on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Procedures, Executive Decree No. 25721-MINAE of October 17, 1996, and its amendments, and shall regulate EIA procedures in the national territory; consequently, they formally adjust the provisions of Decrees Nos. 26082-MINAE of May 30, 1997 and 26538-MINAE of February 3, 1998, which establish exceptions for the requirement of EIA for low environmental impact agricultural activities.\n\nTherefore,\n\nDECREE:\n\nGeneral Provisions\n\nARTICLE 1.—Objective. This Regulation establishes the procedures to be followed in order to obtain the environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental) for the development of new works, activities or projects in the national territory, as part of the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process. It also establishes the procedures for the control and monitoring of the environmental commitments acquired (compromisos ambientales adquiridos, CA), to guarantee effective environmental management by SETENA.\n\nARTICLE 2.—Scope of Application. The provisions of this Regulation are of mandatory compliance for SETENA and the rest of the state institutions that by law participate in the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process, as well as for all individuals or legal entities, public or private, that intend to carry out works, activities or projects that cause or may cause environmental impact (impacto ambiental), with the exceptions established in Article 8 of this Regulation and in Article 83 bis of the Organic Environment Act.\n\nARTICLE 3.—Definitions. For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions are established:\n\nActivity: Set of operations or tasks specific to a person or entity, which by themselves or as part of a process generate a good or service.\n\nAdjacent owner (colindante): Owner of a property that shares at least one boundary line with the property where the works, activity or project subject to EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) is to be developed.\n\nEnvironmental area of direct influence (área de influencia ambiental directa): Territory where the environmental impacts (impactos ambientales) generated by the regular operation of the works, activity or project are directly manifested, without the concurrence of other human activities that may alter the environmental variables studied.\n\nEnvironmental area of indirect influence (área de influencia ambiental indirecta): Territory where the environmental impacts (impactos ambientales) transcend the physical space of the direct environmental area of influence and are manifested, generally, in a deferred manner over time and in an extended manner over space.\n\nEnvironmental auditing (auditoría ambiental, AA): Systematic and documented evaluation process that allows the state of compliance with the commitments assumed in the environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental) resolution, the environmental management plan (plan de gestión ambiental, PGA), the environmental adjustment program (programa de adecuación ambiental, PAA), or other instruments of the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process, to be verified objectively.\n\nEnvironmental assessment (valoración ambiental): Preliminary technical instrument that allows the environmental dimension of a works, activity or project to be characterized through the categorical identification of the possible environmental impacts (impactos ambientales) that its execution may cause.\n\nEnvironmental bond (garantía ambiental): Amount of money that the applicant must deposit in favor of SETENA, in the form of a certificate of deposit or guarantee bond issued by a supervised entity of the national financial system, to guarantee compliance with the commitments acquired under the environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental) resolution.\n\nEnvironmental classification (clasificación ambiental): Act by which SETENA, based on environmental variables, evaluates the works, activity or project to resolve what type of EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) instrument it must present and what documents must accompany it.\n\nEnvironmental commitments (compromisos ambientales, CA): Set of environmental measures identified in the environmental management plan (plan de gestión ambiental, PGA) or in the environmental adjustment program (programa de adecuación ambiental, PAA), to prevent, mitigate, correct, compensate and control the environmental impacts (impactos ambientales) and, in general, to guarantee environmental sustainability, which the applicant must fully comply with.\n\nEnvironmental control and monitoring (control y seguimiento ambiental): Set of administrative actions carried out by SETENA to verify compliance with the CA (compromisos ambientales) and the rest of the obligations set forth in the environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental) resolution.\n\nD1 form (formulario D1): Registration document whose purpose is to legally identify the applicant for environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental).\n\nD2 form (formulario D2): Registration document whose purpose is to identify the works, activity or project for which environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental) is requested, through the technical description of its components and processes.\n\nD3 form (formulario D3): Affidavit by which the applicant declares, under oath, the completeness, accuracy and veracity of the information provided. In addition, it must contain the certification by the responsible professional of the accuracy and veracity of the technical content described in the D1 (formulario D1) and D2 (formulario D2) forms.\n\nDesignated responsible professional (profesional responsable designado): Qualified professional responsible for the preparation of the technical documents required by SETENA, who must be a member of a professional association and be up to date with their obligations to it. For the case of legal entities, the technical documents may be endorsed by the legal representative.\n\nPhysical-environmental diagnosis (diagnóstico físico-ambiental): Instrument that evaluates the state of the environment in the area of influence of the works, activity or project, prior to its development. This instrument documents and quantifies the initial condition of the environment, including the biotic, abiotic and social components.\n\nPartial environmental diagnosis (diagnóstico ambiental parcial): Evaluation instrument for works, activities or projects that are in the process of closure or abandonment, in order to identify the environmental liabilities (pasivos ambientales) and determine the environmental adjustment program (programa de adecuación ambiental, PAA) to be implemented.\n\nPreliminary diagnosis (diagnóstico preliminar): Evaluation instrument applicable to registered projects that do not have a previous environmental characterization, with the purpose of identifying in a general way the environmental aspects and the potential environmental impacts (impactos ambientales), to determine the need to carry out the EIA (evaluación de impacto ambiental) process.\n\nEconomic activity codes (códigos de actividad económica): Codes established in the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), which are used to identify the type of project, work or activity for which environmental viability (viabilidad ambiental) is requested.\n\nGeographic coordinates (coordenadas geográficas): Values that determine the position of a point on the Earth’s surface reference system. They will be represented in degrees, minutes and seconds, based on the official datum of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) and taken at the access point of the property where the works, activity or project is to be developed." }