Dose of Awe: The Country that brought its forests back

Costa Rica once had one of the world’s worst rates of deforestation. By the 1980s, only 24% of its forests were left. 

Today, 57% of the country is forested, and much of it is protected.

So how did Costa Rica become the only tropical nation to stop deforestation, and even reverse it?

One leader did more than any other: Alvaro Umaña.

As environment minister in the late 1980s, he discovered farmers were cutting down trees for space to farm cattle. 

So, his department calculated exactly how much income farmers lost by not keeping cattle – about $64 per hectare. Farmers were then paid an equivalent amount to protect or restore their forests.

The result? 97% of farmers saved or regrew their trees! And, the program quickly spread.

Forests and wildlife flourished. And a surge in “eco-tourism” turned the trees into a new kind of wealth. 

Visitors flocked to Costa Rica to see the breathtaking nature and wildlife, creating one of the country’s largest sources of revenue today. 

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but in Costa Rica trees still standing are worth more than trees cut down.

The success of the program wasn’t just an economic and environmental win, but also a cultural one. Around the same time these policies were introduced, a new national motto began to take hold.

“Pura vida,” or “pure life,” is now a defining Costa Rican philosophy, rooted in “a strong attachment to nature, and cultivating a connection to the Earth”

With this remarkable transformation, Costa Rica has created a blueprint that has inspired people around the globe to restore forests and natural landscapes.