Costa Rica, A Tropical
Ecological Paradise
By Alexandra Marks
I’m currently sitting in the airport in
Costa Rica, fresh from a yoga retreat and
heading back home to Sheep Dog Hollow, the
100-year-old farmhouse we’re trying to
renovate in as green a manner as is
economically practical.
I confess, I’m not quite ready yet to tackle
the questions that I know are waiting for me
– from timing on when we can start spraying
our foam insulation to worries about our
fast-draining checking account and whether
we can really afford those $7-a-square-foot
reclaimed wide board floors (that’s $7 a
square foot not including installation or
refinishing.
No, in my mind I’m still hearing the gentle
roar of the ocean waves, the morning’s
orchestral array of bird songs, and the
rustling of palm fronds in the wind.
And so, since I won’t get to Sheep Dog to
check on progress and attack some of those
questions until Wednesday, I thought I’d
just take a moment to reflect on how lovely
it is to spend time in a genuine “BioGem.”
Yes, Costa Rica is the first country in the
world to be designated a BioGem by the
Natural Resources Defense Council. The
reason for the designation, says the NRDC,
is the government’s commitment to “becoming
the world's first carbon-neutral nation by
2021.”
For years, it’s also pushed sustainability
and eco-tourism and expanded its natural
parks to preserve its biodiversity. To say
nothing of the fact that Costa Rica one of
the hemisphere’s oldest, most stable
democracies, which ranks pretty high in the
United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals
and the UN’s Human Development Index.
Yes, it’s an extraordinary place.
When you arrive, you experience it in subtle
ways. The people have gentleness about them,
or, as they say in Spanish, are they are
“mui amable” – very amiable. The food you
buy in the supermarkets, such as the
tomatoes, have that sweet, home-grown taste
that here in the States you can only get
from a home garden.
And then, of course, there’s the pure air
and the abundance of birds, iguanas, and
little lizards you frequently see lazing in
the sun. Yeah, there’s heat and dust – as
well as pollution in the big cities – but
compared to the other Latin American
countries I’ve visited, it’s a veritable
ecological Eden.
But there’s another reason the NRDC
designated Costa Rica a BioGem: Because it’s
potentially threatened. As the website Earth
Explore notes:
Pressures to open coastlines to oil and gas
exploration and drilling, and exploit virgin
rainforest for timber and mining are ramping
up. All too easily, this small nation could
be directed down the path seen so often in
the tropics; of slash and burn and quick
profit.
To help the country stay on its current
ecological path, the NRDC is “working with
the Energy and Environment Ministry to
identify measures to help the country meet
its [goal to be carbon neutral.
The NRDC also just signed an agreement with
the national electric utility, Instituto
Costarricense de Electricidad, on energy
efficiency and renewable energy projects. In
collaboration with other Latin American
environment agencies, it’s also launched “a
rainforest rejuvenation project to plant
30,000 trees to restore a natural
rainforest.”
So, as I head back home from that tropical
ecological paradise, my Sheep Dog Hollow
worries and questions have been put into a
new perspective.
Yes, this green renovation is costing us
more in the short term – in cash and
headaches – but I again realize that if I
can do a little bit now to help future
generations enjoy the natural beauties of
our country as I just have enjoyed Costa
Rica’s, I know it’s worth the cost.
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