Sustainability in Costa Rica is a very unique topic. While the country is one of the top leaders globally in preservation of wildlife and forests, they use the most pesticides per square kilometer in the world. Reconciling these two very different aspects is unique and challenging, and between our hiking tour in Monteverde and our lecture with Selena, we were able to learn much more about how Costa Rica tackles sustainability.
Firstly, and most notably, is Costa Rica’s approach to tourism. While this is one of the largest contributors to the nation’s GDP, it also comes second to preserving the wildlife. On our tour today, our tour guide let us know that if the park were to find themselves in a situation where it came down to keeping wildlife safe or tour, they would opt to make sure the wildlife remains safe. This is a great way of demonstrating how productivity, conservation, as well as sustainability are balanced.
In our lecture with Selena, we learned about a number of methods utilized during the pandemic in Costa Rica to help promote sustainability. Something very notable was how the fruit present on many coffee plantations that is usually left to rot and gone uneaten was harvested to help local communities. This serves as an example of how sustainability and productivity worked hand-in-hand at a time when many people were in need of help.