Our small boat motored almost silently along the river that ran in a serpentine path through the rich rainforest of the Tortuguero national park on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. Monkeys, sloths and a variety of exotic birds could be glimpsed overhead through the dappled light breaching the forest canopy, while caimans – similar to small alligators – eyed us warily from the water’s edge.
Rounding a bend in the river, it suddenly seemed to straighten unnaturally. This, our guide explained, was not a river at all, but a canal dug by loggers in the mid 20th century. It was used to haul away the giant tropical hardwood trees as the loggers laid waste to much of the rainforest, leaving behind patchy farmland and little else.
Like so many other tropical countries, Costa Rica, which had 75 per cent tree cover as recently as the 1940s, underwent rapid forest clearance for livestock grazing, logging and cash crops, such as bananas, coffee and pineapples. By 1980, half its mature forests had been cleared, and its deforestation rate was among the worst in Latin America.
Reform came quickly, and by 1996 the Costa Rican government had outlawed forest clearance without explicit approval. A year later, it introduced a programme known as PES (Payments for Environmental Services), which gave farmers strong financial incentives to engage in active environmental stewardship, with annual payments of about $64 (€54) per hectare for basic forest protection, as well as soft loans in exchange for agreeing to not damage the forest.
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This amount equated to the cost per hectare of forgoing a cow on that land. As in Ireland, cattle rearing in Costa Rica is marginal at best. By paying farmers an income comparable to what they would earn from cattle rearing, the forests are protected, nature recovers and tourism booms. The PES is largely funded by domestic carbon taxes on fossil fuels in place since 1997, long before Ireland introduced carbon levies.
What we witnessed on that abandoned canal in Tortuguero is the miraculous power of nature to recover and regenerate – in just half a century – if allowed to do so. What we were seeing is classified as secondary forest; the trees are tall but narrow, the canopy is lush yet the ecosystem as a whole is still nowhere near as rich as it was before the chainsaws and ranchers arrived. Still, an astonishing renaissance has occurred in just a few decades.
What has been good for nature has also been good for Costa Rica’s economy. Today, the country is a world leader in eco-tourism, welcoming about three million visitors a year, while one in four of its workforce are engaged in tourism-related jobs. Tourism is the country’s second largest income source, with two thirds of visitors coming as we did to experience its rich ecology.
With a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of $12,000, Costa Rica would be considered poor by European standards, yet its literacy rate of 98 per cent and life expectancy of 81.3 years are similar to Ireland’s. Some experts believe GDP is a flawed measure of a country’s progress. Money spent on military, prisons and policing actually boosts GDP, for example, while in no way indicating societal health.
A more sophisticated gauge is known as the Happy Planet Index (HPI), an annual global assessment that takes a wide range of factors into account, including sustainability, carbon footprint, life expectancy, self-reported wellbeing and overall life satisfaction. Costa Rica has consistently been ranked among the happiest countries on Earth, according to the HPI.
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While measures of happiness are by definition subjective, during our two-week stay, which included visiting Costa Rica’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts as well as the central valley and the cloud forests of Arenal and Monteverde, we repeatedly encountered the term pura vida, which roughly translates to the pure or simple life. In Costa Rica, however, it’s not just a slogan – it’s a guiding philosophy, expressed in an optimistic, upbeat approach to life and a quiet national pride that is neither feigned nor forced, but innate and broadly shared across society.
Anywhere in Costa Rica, you are likely to strike up a conversation about nature protection or climate change in a taxi, on a bus or in a restaurant. Ecological literacy is the norm, not the exception among the public, with conservation and biodiversity forming a key part of the education system from primary level upwards. Biophilia – the innate love of and connection to the living world – is something humans are hard-wired for, but this is fragile and can easily be lost.
While Costa Rica’s population is almost identical in size to Ireland’s, the similarities end when it comes to climate impacts. Costa Rica accounts for just over 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, or 1.5 tonnes per capita. Ireland produced 55 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions in 2024, or about 10 tonnes per capita. Further, it has been estimated that Costa Rica’s reforestation programme drew down about 107 million tonnes of CO2 between 1986-2023, or the equivalent of its total national emissions for more than a decade.
Today, more than one quarter of the entire land area of Costa Rica is designated as national parks and protected areas. In contrast, Ireland’s seven national parks cover barely 2 per cent of our total land area. Even within these parks, there is minimal protection, with extensive overgrazing by both wild herbivores and livestock.
According to the European Environment Agency, 85 per cent of Ireland’s “protected” habitats are in unfavourable condition, as are half our waterways.
Ireland’s staggering lack of national ambition on both nature and climate protection is in marked contrast to Costa Rica, which despite having only a fraction of our wealth, has been able to meet the fundamental needs of its citizens while respecting nature.
While Costa Rica exerts negligible pressure on the global atmosphere, it is nonetheless highly vulnerable to climate impacts, which include rising temperatures, shifts in rainfall patterns and droughts. The country’s energy system is almost entirely based on hydroelectric power and droughts are forcing an increased use of fossil fuels to supplement electricity production.
When we visited the Monteverde cloud forest, the day began shrouded in customary mist, but by noon there were blue skies overhead. As our guide explained, as recently as two decades ago Monteverde typically experienced only around 30-40 sunny days a year; now it is closer to 140 days, and this is drying out and fundamentally altering the forest ecosystem. Some trees that used to bloom annually are now only blooming irregularly, with severe consequences for pollinators.
We visited the Doka coffee plantation close to the capital city, San José, which is trying to counter falling yields by experimenting with new plant varieties that are more resistant to higher temperatures and drought. Globally, up to half the land currently suitable for coffee cultivation could be lost by mid-century due to climate change.
I first wrote about Costa Rica’s green miracle 15 years ago, and had long wished to visit this ecological exemplar, a tiny country with just 0.03 per cent of the world’s land area yet home to some 6 per cent of global biodiversity, a haven for more than half a million plant and animal species. However, I was deterred by the prospect of intercontinental travel and the carbon emissions this inevitably entailed.
This January, having avoided long-haul flying for more than a decade, I decided to travel. The return trip likely accounted for 5-6 tonnes of CO2 emissions, or more than half the average Irish person’s annual total. There are various offset schemes that typically calculate the carbon impact of flying at about €30 a tonne.
However, these schemes lack credibility and greatly underestimate the damage. Applying the US Environmental Protection Agency’s estimate that a tonne of CO2 does at least €160 in damage, the carbon cost of my return trip was likely about €1,000, none of which is reflected in the airline ticket price. I have paid that amount as a voluntary contribution to Fundación Corcovado, a Costa Rica-based charity supporting environmental education, sustainable tourism and national park protection.
John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and author of The Lie of the Land – A Game Plan for Ireland in the Climate Crisis
