[6] When Óscar Arias became president in 1986, he created a cabinet-level Ministry of Environment, Energy and Mines (Spanish: Ministerio de Recursos Naturales, Energía y Minas), and appointed Umaña as its first head.
[9] A key part of this strategy was linking core protected areas with surrounding buffer lands, and encouraging local participation in conservation measures.
[9] Umaña developed systems of financial compensation in the form of grants and favorable loans to give up low-yielding livestock farming to especially small and medium-sized farmers.
[10] The following year the government declared a state of emergency: this involved the suspension of all logging permits outside of private plantations, and a ban on the export of unfinished timber products.
[10] Umaña also helped create the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad,[3] (English: National Biodiversity Institute) to catalogue Costa Rica's biological diversity, and to identify ways in which the country's environmental wealth could aid economic development.