Environmental Conservation in Costa Rica
Costa Rica has one of the most developed conservation programs in the world, at least among countries having tropical rain forests. With one of the highest levels of bio-diversity in the world, it has around 12000 plant species, 232 animal species as well as 838 bird and 440 amphibian and reptilian life forms combined.
Approximately 66% of the remaining rain forests in the country are covered by private and public reserves / preserves, with one running over 40 miles stretching from sea level to 12,500 feet and covering 9 ecological zones! The original plan envisaged at least 30% of the total land mass available in Costa Rica would be covered under conservation programs and they have managed to do a good job of it.
The country has come up with many innovative ideas to carry out sustainable development that would least impact the environment, some of which have been emulated in other countries with different levels of success. Costa Rica has also established itself as the front runner in eco-tourism, which usually generates the second highest amounts of foreign exchange, after agricultural exports. However tourists enjoying Costa Rica vacations have in some instances landed up degrading the environment, especially with respect to the number of visitors in some extremely fragile ecosystems and hotel building permits.
Environmental Conservation
The country also earns money by selling carbon credits to some of the more polluting nations. However, there are some deficiencies in the system which can be gauged from the fact that deforestation has taken the forest cover level down from 85% in the 1940s to anything between 35% and 45% today, depending on who is doing the reporting. However the rate of tree felling has dropped drastically from that seen in the 1970s and 1980s when large scale cutting was the order of the day to raise cattle for export to the US and also for banana and coffee plantations.
Besides the on-going conservation efforts in the rain and cloud forests around places like Monteverde, other programs have addressed the decline in turtle populations on the pacific coast, the protection of land crabs to allow conservation of coastal tropical forests and protecting green macaws by banning the logging of the mountain almond tree. Re-growing rain forests, protection of different species of salamanders and protecting certain species of birds as well as amphibians from getting extinct in Costa Rica have also been addressed recently. Studies on the migration of whales and sharks off the coast of Costa Rica have also been undertaken as well as the effect of large scale agricultural on a forest’s ability to recover.
As can be seen from all the above, Costa Rica has been quite committed to environmental conservation and has generally benefited from it with eco-tourism paying for a lot of the ‘responsible’ development activities that have taken place in that country recently. However, corruption and diversion of funds meant for the parks and reserves to make up budget deficits has at times undercut the overall positive picture of sustainable development practiced there.
This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 10:58 am by Costa Rica Sunsets staff; Category: Other(s). Follow responses through the RSS FEED (2.0) / You can jump right to the end and leave your thoughts, comments or response. Pinging this post is not permitted.