Limiting tourism could be very difficult for Costa Rica to do. Think about it, we are tourists here right now too. We have been to a few different forests exploring them. One thing that Josue said on the bus to the cloud forest today did stick with me though. He told us, “We used to be able to go on any trail we wanted to go on in the cloud forest, but now we can only go on one.” That was very interesting to me. It made me think about if Costa Rica is trying to protect the forest more now, or if the business just wanted more money because people pay extra for the other trails.
I believe that limiting tourism would be good for the land and is good stewardship, but also very difficult to do. I also think it is necessary to an extent. Preserving nature is a really huge thing in Costa Rica especially, but they also get lots of tourists. When having lots of tourists that are wanting to view these areas, land, and animals that they have never seen, you want to be able to make them happy. If you practice good stewardship by not letting them see these areas and protecting them, then you’re going to make them upset.
To be honest, I don’t think I have a straight up answer on if it is good stewardship or not. For the animals, yes, it is good stewardship to do that. For the tourists, I think they would believe it is not. I don’t believe it unfairly burdens the community and the visitors, but just the visitors. I do think it is necessary for the land though and for the animals to be able to live in their own home, without people constantly disturbing them, or building trails and ruining their homes in the forest.