Finding hope for nature recovery from Costa Rica

Let’s face it – there isn’t too much hope around at the moment for environmentalists and conservationists. The world is burning, policy is not creating the action needed (or at the speed needed) for nature recovery, and we are still in that embarrassing position of being ranked in the bottom 10% globally for biodiversity intactness. We also rank bottom in Europe for nature connectedness which means people are feeling more separate from nature than ever.

But there is hope – and we can take inspiration from a tropical country who have turned around nature recovery and achieved the impossible. I’m of course talking about Costa Rica. For those who don’t know Costa Rica’s story from a degraded and deforested country to the winner of the Earthshot Prize, here is a summary of their journey.

A turning point

By 1987, the country had lost nearly half of their woodland cover to deforestation for timber. Cattle pastures and crops replaced these rich rainforest areas, and wildlife was in decline. Although this was a seemingly hopeless situation, the Government stepped in and changed their policy and economic focus to prioritise nature’s recovery. They introduced a human right to a healthy environment, and enhanced their education programme to highlight the value and importance of the natural environment. These combined have provided the perfect conditions for large scale and fast action –turning around declines to kick-start nature’s recovery within 20 years! Costa Rica became the first tropical country to stop and reverse deforestation.

Financial incentives

A Government initiative was established to pay local communities to help protect the natural ecosystem. The payments for ecosystem services programme is still central today, and aims to pay to protect watersheds, conserve biodiversity and mitigation carbon. A total of $64 per ha per year is paid to farmers for basic forest protection and restoration. Additional income is then provided through selectively harvesting timber from reforested areas (like continuous canopy forestry), through growing a small number of crops, or through tourism. This provides an incentive for reforesting as well as an income for farmers and tenants in these areas.

Rethinking Economics

Conservation is often though to be incompatible with economics. But the economy is at the forefront of Costa Rica’s nature recovery strategy. The Payments for Ecosystem Services initiative was funded through Government taxing on fossil fuels – this has raised $500 million over 20 years.

Nature is also paying back – a total of 3 million tourists visit the country per year, 60% of which visit for the environment. This has generated $4 billion per year, supporting 200,000 jobs and contributing to 8% GDP. Costa Rica now has the international reputation of being a country with thriving wildlife.

Taking inspiration

Costa Rica now has 60% forest cover and supports half a million plants and animals. This has been created through a combination of political will combined with environmental passion and tourism. On top of nature recovery, the country now generates 98% of its energy from renewables and 26% of land is now protected.

I dream of a Britain where, like Costa Rica, it is now a thriving country with wild spaces for all to enjoy and explore. There are already parallels between Costa Rica and Britain – we have a low woodland cover, nature is in decline, and we need to see a massive upheaval to turn this around. But, we also have success stories to show how nature recovery can be achieved. There are examples of how nature recovery can support jobs and local economies - White-tailed eagles now bring at least?￡5 million?into the Mull economy every year, up from ￡1.4 million in 2005. Imagine if we scaled this up across the whole of Britain?

We are in the UN decade for Ecosystem Restoration and rewilding is more popular than ever – we can be the generation to turn this around the nature. Costa Rica have provided a blueprint for how we can make these changes quickly – there are real examples of how we can achieve this. We already have some of the infrastructure in place through the emerging agricultural policies (including ELM in England), as well as other financial mechanisms.

What we need is the political will to accelerate this alongside the GCSE for Natural History to reconnect the next generation with nature. Combine this with harnessing the environmental passion and knowledge we already have across Britain and we have a winning formula. I see this passion everyday through the growing community of rewilding practitioners as well as the numerous conservation organisations.

I believe we can turn this around and be the first generation to stand up and say ‘we did it, we turned it around and restored nature’. We have to improve our biodiversity intactness rankings, and we need to do so fast!

?Let’s lead the change!?