Prioritizing Life Over Profit

There’s a certain crisp taste in the air of Monteverde, yeah it’s probably just the elevation, but I like to think of it as something more. The combination of absolutely breathtaking sights, life in every direction, and a true passion from its residents is what gives it that magic touch. In all seriousness, I believe that truly extradonary things can happen when a lot of people come together working towards the same cause. It’s evident through the cloud forest conservative in which people who were sincerely passionate about the fate of natural wildlife reasoned and convinced farmers to conserve their land rather than wipe it out for farming. If it wasn’t for the passion of some scientists and the willingness to give up on their farms for a better purpose, the cloud forest wouldn’t even exist today.

One of the very specific issues Monteverde has to face regarding climate change is the cloud forest’s ecosystem damage. Our tour guide today was explaining that the wildlife of the cloud forest heavily relies on the clouds being present the majority of the time, however, with climate change raising clouds there are no longer any higher elevation forests for the animals to migrate to. It can impact their breeding season, their methods of eating, and just their lifestyle overall to the point where it can cause extinction.

I believe there is definitely an ultimatum for not just Monteverde, but any city that attracts tourism because of it’s beautiful natural landscape. On on hand, you could prioritize profiting off of this tourism as much as possible by wiping away more natural land to build hotels or using all the resources such as water to supply paying tourists. On the other hand, you decide to prioritize protecting the original people of the land, you spend less energy wiping out more of the forest and instead protect it as much as possible. I believe every area like Monteverde tries to find a balance, but there will always be a fight over profits and preservation. I firmly believe Monteverde and it’s people try to prioritize the forest, however, when speaking with people like Don Ricardo and hearing that AirBNBs are provided water over original residents, you can see the consequences of tourism. At the end of the day, there is no perfect way to approach this issue without negatively affecting either innovation or sustainability. However, if I were to choose, I would choose sustainability a 1000 times over. Not only because I feel it would be the moral thing to do, but because I believe it may be the more profitable option in the long run. You can find resorts and resturaunts anywhere in the world, but where you can find preserved natural beauty like in Monteverde is becoming more and more rare. It’s a simple answer to me, pick life everytime.