Today we started the day bright and early by visiting the cloud forest reserve. We spent the first half of the visit by hiking with a tour guide that would point out various plants and animals as we walked. For the second half of the hike, we got to explore the trails on our own, which was also cool because we went to a hanging bridge and got to walk further up the mountain and truly be in the clouds. During our hike at the reserve, I learned a lot about Costa Rica’s rich biodiversity, which was significant during our lecture today. I learned that Costa Rica makes up 5% of the world’s biodiversity and Monteverde itself makes up 2% of that biodiversity.
Since Costa Rica is a country with such rich biodiversity, it is important that they have strong efforts and initiatives to preserve it. As we were at the Monteverde Institute today, we learned about the different pillars of sustainability that help Costa Rica preserve their forest coverage and biodiversity. The three main pillars of sustainability are social, economic, and environmental. In order to maintain their environment, Costa Rica has to find a balance between these three items. Additionally, this challenge grows as making changes to sustainability initiatives can be costly and limit productivity for a given period of time. However, it is important to consider the long term effects of practices that are not sustainable and if those effects outweigh short term costs.
Costa Rica faces unique challenges as tourism is a major part of their economy. While tourism is not the largest sector of Costa Rica’s economy, it still plays a major role in sustainable development. For example, tourism has many advantages and disadvantages in Costa Rica’s sustainability initiates. While tourism brings in additional money that can be put towards improving sustainability, it also brings in increased waste and carbon footprints. Therefore, Costa Rica must work to find a balance between bringing in money with tourism and finding ways to make tourism sustainable.
Additionally, at the Monteverde Institute, we learned about the competing interests of productivity, conservation, and sustainability. Although all of these are very important, I would argue that sustainability is currently most important to prioritize. I believe that the one that should take the most priority should shift given the situation, but currently sustainability is important because it is future oriented and focuses on ensuring that future generations have access to important resources.
To finish the busy day in Monteverde we went on a night hike! It was very rainy, but still extremely fun because it was unlike anything I have ever done before. I got to see animals, such as snakes, frogs, insects, etc. The hike in the morning was interesting because you could see everything clearly, but for the night hike it was pitch black out and we had to rely on our flashlights. While the rainy weather got very cold by the end of the hike, I am very glad I was able to experience it and see all of those animals. Ultimately today was a great day for exploring nature and learning more about Costa Rica’s sustainable initiatives.
