Costa Rica: a map you can look at and not read
Ley 8904 of 2010 banned open-pit metal mining and reserved Abangares, Golfito and Osa for subsistence and small-scale mining; underground metal mining stays legal on paper. The regulator is the Dirección de Geología y Minas under MINAE, at geologia.go.cr (the old geologiaminas host no longer resolves). Its cadastre is a viewer on an Addax platform with no data endpoint found, and its Registro Nacional Minero is two buttons, a per-file lookup and a manual. What is real in 2026 is illegal mining at Crucitas: a standoff between the presidency and the Assembly over an anti-illegal-mining bill, and deaths that are sometimes collapses and sometimes police shootings.
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- The DGM's cadastre viewer (VisorDGM) and per-file mining registry: a map to look at and a file to consult, no listing, no download.
- The DGM's Diagnóstico de la actividad minera, national and seven regional editions for 2021 and 2022: production by region and concession counts, not a per-concession list.
- The CSO's occupational-health statistics, annual 2013 to 2025, from the insurance superintendency's work-risk data: the best occupational-accident series in Central America, without a mining split.
- A readable register: no data endpoint behind the viewer, no export, no open dataset (the presidency's open-data portal no longer resolves).
- A mining accident or sanction record from the DGM or MINAE.
By the press, at Crucitas and in Abangares: a collapse that killed Nicaraguan brothers in September 2025, deaths in clashes with the Fuerza Pública in November and December 2025, a tragedy in the Abangares mining zone in May 2026. Two of four recent deaths were police shootings, not mine accidents; a lane would have to separate the two or misreport both. The victims are often Nicaraguan migrants.
No dedicated access-to-information statute. The right is constitutional (articles 27 and 30) and procedural through the derecho de petición under Ley 9097 of 2013, ten business days to answer with the recurso de amparo as the remedy (the deadline was not verified against the statute). The realistic ask is the DGM's cadastre as data rather than as a map, a modest request to an institution whose site is actively maintained.
A data endpoint or export behind the cadastre viewer, and the fate of the anti-illegal-mining bill. A press lane at Crucitas would need a collapse-versus-enforcement flag before it could publish a count.
Dirección de Geología y Minas, mining cadastre (viewer). →
Consejo de Salud Ocupacional, occupational-health statistics (annual PDF). →
DGM, Diagnóstico de la actividad minera 2022 (PDF). →
Each source was opened on 15 September 2026 from a US egress; a host that answered differently that day is described as it answered.