Costa Rica is the only tropical country in the world to reverse deforestation. How was this done? We went to Costa Rica to investigate.

The bottom line is that Costa Ricans have found that the quickest way to incentivise people to care for the environment is through their pocket. Harsh, but predictably true! Can this be used as a template for other countries?

The ground-breaking programme used to achieve the incredible progress of Costa Rica is called “Payments for Environmental Services” (PES) – put in place in 1997 with funding predominantly from the gas tax.

Costa Rica has become an eco-tourist hot-spot – making far more money from adventure hungry tourists who flock to see toucans, sloths, monkeys and brilliantly coloured frogs than it did from selling its coffee, bananas & timber.

In the 1940’s, 75% of Costa Rica was covered in rainforests. It’s thought that a half of this was destroyed by a combination of loggers and the land being cleared to grow crops and for livestock. By the 1980’s it had one of the world’s highest deforestation rates. Remarkably – just 40-years later – close to 60% of the country is once again covered by forests and its economy is now centred on ecotourism. The recovery began in 1996 when the Costa Rican government made it illegal to chop down forest without approval from the authorities. There are strict rules and penalties for changes in land use, with hefty fines & some people sent to prison. The following year they introduced the PES programme.

The result is that agriculture’s share of the Central American country’s economy has fallen from 25% in 1982 to just over 4% today. In contrast tourism to protected natural areas has soared from about 500,000 in 1990 to 3 million, producing USD$4 billion in revenue and employing more than 200,000 people.

Costa Ricans are quite sanguine about the changes – with many believing they are doing more than their share to “help save the planet” from global warming – and it’s hard to disagree!

There has been some massive benefits from this strategy, with thousands of jobs being created by the new tourism industry and despite the traffic jams in & out of San Jose, huge strides are being made to convert public & private transportation to electricity in pursuit of net-zero emissions.

Of course, all of this would not be possible without the help of the World Bank. President Chaves has cleverly negotiated a deal worth USD$60 million by 2025 as part of the PES programme. Costa Rica hopes this money will help it to double the amount of protected forest.

For such a small country – it certainly is doing its fair share to save the planet.

To finish, let me leave you with this poem about Costa Rica’s national bird. In a country overflowing with colour I think it sums up the pragmatism of the people.

Pure clay

Just a brown bird, the colour of mud.
The kind that no birder writes down;
An also ran; a background species.

Until.

Until it sings; beautiful, patterned notes;
bright, iridescent cadences; all strident
and glistening. Sunshine for the ears.

So.

The Clay-coloured Thrush is royalty;
the chosen one; representing the soul
of a nation, the very heart of Costa Rica.

Pura vida.