eco-tourism and peaceful, tropical living, is proving to the world...

The Central American country of Costa Rica, well-known as a haven for eco-tourism and peaceful, tropical living, is proving to the world that being a small nation in the developing world is no barrier to sustainability, happiness and ecological consciousness.
As host to the recent II International Planted, People, Peace Conference, which was held for three days in November with a focus on sustainable ecotourism both nationally and internationally, Costa Rica has been recognized as a leader in ecological travel and sustainability.
Despite being one of the smallest countries on the planet, the country has been announced as the highest-ranking nation in the Happy Planet Index, showing the rest of the world what it really means to live sustainably and happily.
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The Happy Planet Index 2.0 released earlier this year ranks countries according to the triple goals of long life, high well-being and a sustainable ecological footprint. Costa Rica, long known for being a peaceful haven in a troubled region, tops the index for producing over 99 percent of its electricity from renewable resources as well as maintaining great living standards for its population, which reports the highest life-satisfaction in the world and the second-longest life-expectancy in North America.
According to the New Economic Foundation, Costa Rica’s impressive achievement of 99.2 percent renewable energy is made up of around 50 percent sustainable energy, compared with many other nations in the region who use primarily hydroelectric dams or wood-burning as a source of energy that is, while renewable, not sustainable.
The sustainable energy matrix in Costa Rica is made up largely by geothermal energy, sugarcane waste and biomass generation.
Costa Rica also comes closest to achieving the “holy grail” of sustainability – a concept popularly known as One-Planet Living: the tiny nation has an ecological footprint of only 2.3 hectares per person, which is only slightly above the goal of 2.1 hectares per person worldwide in order to live with the Earth sustainably.
Geothermal energy
A significant portion of electricity in Costa Rica is generated by geothermal energy, with the country currently investigating plans to increase its current capacity of 152 megawatts in four geothermal plants. A new volcano-power generation plant is due to come on line in early 2011, with two more planned for the near future.
Despite requiring a significant investment, geothermal electricity generation plants are generally considered to be one of the most sustainable sources of energy and can provide a reliable, long-term power source without doing significant damage to the region’s ecosystem.
The Costa Rican government is also aiming to be the first nation to be completely carbon neutral, with recently-announced plans to reduce the country’s net greenhouse gas emissions and offset all carbon by the year 2030.
This is in sharp contrast to other leading countries such as Norway, which plans to become carbon neutral by 2050. According to Costa Rican Environment Minister Roberto Dobles, the plans include not only reducing emissions by cleaning up fossil fuel power plants and switching to more sustainable energy, but also by promoting hybrid vehicles and tree-planting to offset emissions.
The program, which is being funded by a 3.5 percent tax on gasoline, which is hoped to provide an extra benefit of discouraging gasoline use though extra costs, is so successful that the U.N. has called for other countries to follow Costa Rica’s example.
Biodiversity
Costa Rica is also well-known for its lush forests and beautiful topical landscapes which happen to be some of the most important wildlife areas in the world in terms of biodiversity. It is estimated that the small nation, which accounts for only 51,000 square kilometers is also host to around five percent of the world’s biodiversity.
Home to a vast array of endangered, protected and rare animal and plant species including exotic birds and frogs, the Costa Rican government works closely with conservation groups to ensure a sustainable future for the flora and fauna found in the country. Around one quarter of the nation is National Park reserve land where animals and plants are protected.
A strong emphasis has been placed in recent years on the benefits of ecological protection, which include ecotourism – a substantial part of Costa Rica’s economy; fishing, medicinal plants and environmental service payments. The government supports a comprehensive legal framework for biodiversity conservation which includes protocols for sustainable use and practices regarding biodiversity.
Eleven conservation areas have been defined by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy and is administered by a department of the ministry called the National System of Conservation Areas.
One recent win for animal conservationists was the move by President Oscar Arias to protect endangered leatherback sea turtles which nest in the beaches in a small area of the Pacific coast in the north-western region of the country. According to one turtle protection group, the move is a great step towards restoring the population of leatherback turtles that has been decreasing rapidly in recent years, mostly due to human activities such as fishing and egg-poaching.
Mr. Arias also made significant progress in the reforestation of degraded areas in recent years, having created programs for the planting of many millions of trees. Mr. Arias himself planted the five millionth tree in 2007, and around seven million trees were planted in Costa Rica in 2008 alone.
Largely as a result of the tree planting programs, forest cover in Costa Rica has grown from around one quarter of the country to over fifty percent. This is hugely inspiring as an example for other nations, and even for individuals all over the world. Through abundant tree-planting, Costa Rica has managed to significantly offset its carbon emissions and take a step in averting the predicted climate crisis.