I promise the views today were immaculate. Unfortunately internet does not function at this altitude and therefore I am unable to share them ☹️

Costa Rica prides itself on being a sustainable country, having several programs in place to promote its residents to live a sustainable lifestyle. However, they didn’t achieve this without any challenges. During our lecture today, we learned a bit about the difficulty of balancing productivity, sustainability, and conservation.

It is often difficult to balance these three values as they often have opposing effects. For example, many things that would be economically favorable are often rather damaging to the environment, which is not sustainable in the area of climate change. Monteverde specifically struggled significantly during covid, as their main income source was by far tourism. All of Costa Rica struggled with this, as the whole country heavily relies on tourism as an income source, but Monteverde was hit especially hard.

Choosing one to prioritize is hard, as they are all very important, and it is also not universal. For example, an extreme event such as covid caused the priorities to shift for the short-term. In general, I think that sustainability is the most important, as it encompasses many different areas and has many benefits. However, this may have to change in special situations.