Curridabat (Costa Rica) urban policy: extending citizenship to pollinators

Summary

In 2016, the municipality of Curridabat, Costa Rica, adopted an ongoing urban planning policy which recognizes pollinators (including bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats) as “citizens” of the city whose needs must be considered as well as those of human residents in municipal development. The policy emerged from the Ciudad Dulce (“Sweet City”) master plan, presented in 2015 after approximately three years of participatory planning. The policy incorporates pollinators into municipal governance as planning subjects, but does not grant pollinators legal personhood or legal rights. The initiative was developed under Mayor Edgar Mora Altamirano and Innovation Director Irene María García Brenes, in collaboration with Tándem Arquitectos and YUSO Proyectos. “Small things can make a big difference,” says Mora Altamirano. “Bees, hummingbirds and butterflies know this. With every transfer of nectar and pollen, they add value to the planet. Their bodies may be small, but their value is enormous. As the world’s cities enter a new century, they will have to change and, in future, accommodate a biodiversity that we have hitherto kept at bay.” – (Online lecture by Edgar Mora Altamirano as part of “The Living City: An Urban Ecocentric Law Summit”, organised by the Earth Law Center at Fordham Law University as part of New York Climate Week on 23 September, 2025)

The Ciudad Dulce strategy was developed to address declining ecological connectivity within urban environments. The master plan is organized around five planning pillars: habitat, coexistence, productivity, infrastructure, and biodiversity. To meet these pillars, previous municipal projects incorporate native flowering vegetation, ecological restoration of soils and waterways, expanded tree planting, and interconnected green spaces which act as ecological corridors within the city. $45 million were invested into the Sweet City project to create and revitalize 63 new and existing parks in 21 city neighborhoods, and eight corridors link neighborhoods and parks.

Curridabat, one of four municipalities within the Greater San José metropolitan area, covers approximately 15.9 km² and has a population of roughly 80,000. Located at about 1,200 metres above sea level in Costa Rica’s Central Valley, it lies within one of the country’s most urbanized regions. Costa Rica contains an estimated 5 to 6 percent of the world’s known species despite occupying only about 0.03 percent of the Earth’s land surface.

In 2017, the municipality received a UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda award, joined the Biophilic Cities Network, and has since developed proposals for regional pollinator corridors linking Curridabat with neighbouring municipalities in the Greater San José metropolitan area.