 |
| Minister of Environment and
Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez |
| Photo by Miia Niskanen |
The number-one priority of the Ministry of Environment
and Energy of Costa Rica has for years been the
fulfillment of the so-called “green agenda:”
protection of national parks, biodiversity and the
forest. Recently, a study by the Ministry was conducted
to analyze the goals and achievements of the program,
and it was felt that in many areas, especially reforestation,
the results had been positive.
Costa Rica is the first tropical country in the world
that has successfully solved the problem of deforestation.
If one compares figures of the amount of forest cut
each year, dating back to the 1950s, to what it is
today, it becomes clear that the deforestation rate
has more than halved.
Moreover, every year there is more forest than the
year before. The clear-cutting was banned in 1996
and various environmental service programs were conceived
to protect the forest. One such program consisted
of providing incentives to private owners of forests
– paying them $40 USD per hectare in exchange
for their commitment to the maintenance of their forest
and the environment.
According to the Minister of Environment and Energy,
Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, “We are promoting the
proper conditions in order to be make conservation
more interesting than the exploitation of the timber
in our tropical forest.”
He continues to say that it is important to educate
people also about ecotourism, and to encourage private
owners to participate in environmental service programs.
It seems that these joint efforts are yielding positive
results. At this moment in time, it is still more
profitable to cut the trees and sell the logs than
to receive money from environmental service programs;
however, an increasing number of people, even those
living in poor conditions, prefer the payments of
environmental service programs to cutting down the
trees.
Minister Rodriguez is pleased with the results, claiming,
“This reveals that there is some kind of national
conscious and that our environmental programs are
being successful.”
So, why is it so important to protect nature and speed
up the reforestation process. For starters, deforestation
is a new threat that does not recognize geographical
boundaries. Decreasing the number of trees decreases
the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Secondly,
if the trees are cut and then burnt or left to rot,
they begin producing carbon dioxide, which adds to
the greenhouse effect, global warming and weakening
of the ozone layer.
In the case of Costa Rica, deforestation is particularly
crucial. Costa Rica's incredible biodiversity and
ecosystem is at stake. When forest is cut, a home
is taken away from many of the nine hundred different
birds species, nine thousand different types of flora,
two hundred different breeds of mammals and four hundred
different forms of reptiles. |
