Today we started our morning off with a hike through the cloud forests of Monte Verde, lush with all different sorts of flora and fauna. We saw all sorts of things like white-faced monkeys, tarantulas, hummingbirds, and quetzals. However, climate change is endangering this environment, and could very easily turn the cloud forest into just a regular rainforest.

After our hike, we went to Life Monteverde and talked about the balance that needs to occur between economic, social, and environmental needs. Our economy can be visualized as a layer of rings, where we have human needs in the middle and environmental consequences on the outside. We need to ensure that we can meet our needs while also protecting our home, Earth.

Sustainability and conservation come hand and hand when you think about how we need to move forward in the future, however in reality they are very different. Sustainability requires an economy that doesn’t waste any resource, including the environment and the people of the community. Whereas conservation is more about giving nature space to exist in beside our developments. If we keep these ideas in mind as we produce, we can help slow down or stop climate change.

I think that some challenges regarding these topics unique to Monteverde include it’s separation from Costa Rica, which puts them at risk of being unable to acquire necessities like food and water. But they also have the same issues as the rest of Costa Rica where the majority of its economy is in relation to the environment. As climate change continues it will start to deteriorate the backbone of the Costa Rican economy.