Ecotourism in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is known to be the number one country when it comes to ecotourism so far, and it’s one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. In fact, Costa rica had devoted about 25 % of their teritories for national parks, wildlife reserves and protected lands. As a result, about 1.7 million visitors (for only 4 million of residents) coming from all over the world  to exprience walking throught the splendid rainforests hosting the most exotic species on earth. Moreover, ecotourism continues to provide Costa Ricans a way to generate employment and income and so developing their  national economic growth. Indeed, costa rica gained about 1.6 billion $ revenue from ecotourism, equivilant to twice of  the exports incomes of coffee and bananas.

However, victim of its success, Costa Rica and its national parks in particular are welcoming more and more travelers tending to promote mass tourism. Consequently, travelers are getting more attracted by the neighboring countries such as Nicaragua where there’s fewer people and way more of unspoiled areas.

And so, the author went to visit the most famous spots such as Manuel Antonia National Park, and noticed the crowd of tourists which reminded him of Disneyland to the point that animals got used to the human presence. As a response to that phenonmenon, the gouvernment decided to put a cap to the number of daily visitors. Despite the constant increase travelers, the author found out that there’s few areas that remains pristine a little further away. The distant location of these sites is exhausting though, the author enjoyed the landscapes by being all alone with nature.

In brief, Costa Rica  is trying to find some kind of good harmony between increase tourists and rainforest preservation although maintaning this balance in a sustainable way is way more difficult than expected.

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