A Critical Evaluation of Conservation Strategies in Costa Rica
Introduction
With factors such as climate change and habitat loss and fragmentation becoming more
severe, species are going extinct at unprecedented rates (Lamkin and Miller, 2016).
Biodiversity conservation is therefore becoming increasingly important, and one country
where it has played a significant role is Costa Rica. Located in the Mesoamerica biodiversity
hotspot (Mittermeier et al., 2004), Costa Rica is one of the most important areas on the
planet for biodiversity. Despite having an area of just 51,000 km2, Costa Rica contains
approximately 5% of all known species, meaning the country has a higher species density
than any other (Fiebelkorn and Menzel, 2012). To protect this diversity, Costa Rica has
engaged in extensive conservation work, the success of which has led to the country being
frequently used as a model in other conservation schemes around the globe (Evans, 1999).
Though Costa Rica has a long history of biodiversity conservation, recent conservation
efforts have been an attempt to reverse the rapid environmental destruction the country
underwent in the 20th century.
The rise of the coffee trade in the 19th century – combined with the fact that railroads built
to transport the coffee beans made previously remote parts of the country far more
accessible – resulted in a surge of foreign visitors to Costa Rica (Evans, 1999). Chief amongst
them were scientists, attracted to the country for its rich biodiversity (Evans, 1999). This
phenomenon was seized on by various Costa Rican governments who recruited European
scientists and teachers to educate Costa Ricans on conservation and sustainable agricultural
practices (Evans, 1999).
However, from the late 19th century through most of the 20th century deforestation rose
rapidly, primarily due to the banana trade. The continuous expansion of banana plantations
– as well as the need for cattle ranches to feed the rising work force – led to unprecedented
rates of deforestation (Evans, 1999). It is estimated that between 1940 and 1984, forest
cover in Costa Rica declined by 50% (Sanchez-Azofeifa et al., 2001) and by the mid-1970s, for
the first time in Costa Rica’s history, non-forested regions covered a greater area of the
country than forested regions (Stan and Sanchez-Azofeifa, 2019).
It is in response to this rapid loss of forested areas that Costa Rica has engaged in extensive
conservation efforts. Due to the importance of biodiversity conservation in Costa Rica, it is
vital that all strategies and projects be thoroughly analysed to maximise the success of
conservation efforts. This report will therefore seek to critically evaluate several of the
existing conservation efforts in Costa Rica, as well as proposing additional strategies.
Current Conservation Strategies
One of the core aspects of conservation in Costa Rica has been the use of protected areas,
with a National Protected Areas System (NPAS) being established in 1976 (González-Maya et
, al., 2015). Since the development of NPAS, protected area coverage has grown significantly;
NPAS now includes over 190 protected areas, which has resulted in 26% of land in Costa Rica
having protected status (González-Maya et al., 2015). The apparent success of these
protected areas is reflected in their high species richness; 98.5% of all Costa Rican mammal
species can be found within protected areas (González-Maya et al., 2015). Furthermore,
most conventional methods of analysis would estimate that between 26% and 51% of Costa
Rica’s forests that received protection between 1960 and 1996 would have been deforested
by 1997 if the protected status had not been in place (Andam et al., 2008). Due to the
significant harm this destruction would have had on the species inhabiting these forests, it
could be argued that the use of protected areas has been a significant step in reversing –
and preventing further – habitat loss and fragmentation. However, further analysis casts
doubt on the true effectiveness of these protected areas for two main reasons. First,
although the majority of mammal species in Costa Rica can be found within protected areas,
the protected areas only cover, on average, 28.3% of the species’ ranges (González-Maya et
al., 2015). This means that almost three-quarters of the land inhabited by these species is
unprotected. Second, due to the bias of the conventional methods of analysis (i.e., assuming
that protected status is assigned randomly) it is estimated that most studies overestimate
the effectiveness of protected areas by at least a factor of three and that the true proportion
of avoided deforestation in Costa Rica would be closer to 9% (Andam et al., 2008).
Another core aspect of Costa Rica’s conservation efforts is environmental education. This is
an integral part of conservation for two reasons. First, people with greater knowledge of the
environment are more likely to engage in more environmentally friendly behaviour (Varela-
Candamio et al., 2018). Second, due to a lack of connection to nature, children are
increasingly fearful of or apathetic towards animal species (Imai et al., 2018; Jančaříková et
al., 2020). Environmental education can therefore be used to reverse these attitudes and
spread awareness of the importance of biodiversity. For over 40 years, Costa Rica has been
recognised as a leader in environmental education, with the subject being a part of the
national curriculum for both primary and secondary schools (Blum, 2008). This commitment
to environmental awareness was further cemented in 1993 with the creation of the Office of
Environmental Education, whose actions have included organising environmental clubs in
schools across the country and training teachers on the requirements of the environmental
education curriculum (Blum, 2008). Additionally, the Ministry of Education encourages
teachers to focus on local ecology and local environmental issues (Blum, 2008), and this
seems to be working. A comparison of environmental education between a biodiversity
hotspot – Costa Rica – and an industrialised country – Germany – found that German
teachers had a more global view of biodiversity and were unsure of the status of their local
biodiversity, whereas Costa Rican teachers had a more local view of biodiversity and
unanimously described it as being under threat (Fiebelkorn and Menzel, 2012). This would
suggest that the governments of Costa Rica have been effective at instilling in their citizens
the importance of biodiversity conservation. However, their reach has been limited by
several factors. First, ten years after its creation the Office of Environmental Education only
had a staff of five people and had limited financial resources, which meant staff were
frequently unable to train teachers as they could not travel to the often isolated and rural
schools (Blum, 2008). Second, the Office has undergone various reorganisations; the Office
