Session #6

On how Costa Rica’s ‘green exceptionalism’ goes offshore: unpacking the major diplomatic narratives on Costa Rican oceans at UNOC3

Part 1: Crossing two branches of research to inform this case study:

• Literature on Costa Rica’s ‘green exceptionalism’ as particular paradox between environmental leadership at the international scale and contradiction to this with strong socio-environmental conflicts at the national and local scales; these works have focused on terrestrial topics, cf. intensive monocultures, protected areas on land. Costa Rican environmental diplomacy has, until recently, not been significantly turned towards oceans (which doesn’t mean that the country has had its ‘back to the seas’ as is often stated!)
• Literature on ocean geographies, expansion of increasingly large and remote MPAs, social construction of ‘offshore’ depicted as socially empty and frontier-space?

Part 2: Following the major narratives on Costa Rican oceans at UNOC3 based on ethnographic observations of:

• The pavilion as a fixed narrative-filled infrastructure
• Events relating to the expansion of Isla del Coco LMPA to achieve 30 by 30 target
• Events relating to the ‘Thermal Dome’ as potential High Seas MPA In each of them, highlight/determine aspects of this strategic ‘offshore construction’

Part 3: Discussion and critique of this dominant narrative

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 Date: March 31, 2026

 Hour: 2-3 PM online and up to 4 PM on site

Place: Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity, Oldenburg (Germany) and online

Register

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