Costa Rica was once known for beef and timber. These two were the biggest foreign currency earning resources. Costa Rica is now a tourism destination and the genre of tourism this small land of timber and livestock promotes is ecotourism.
How has this switch over come about? Was it political will? Or it was innovative and extraordinary thinking? Or it is out of sheer opportunity that Cost Rica got out of serendipity? If that was so, what was that development?
It is reported that Costa Rica was thinking in innovative lines as to make their people participate in all their nation building affairs regardless of their being educated or intelligent, rich or poor, or modern or aboriginal. Yes, Cost Rica has very wisely and widely made use of their resources, both natural and human, alike in such a way as to make the government look people friendly and the contributions to the society, eco-economy friendly.
Here lies their success. And it is here we fail. Our bureaucracy is blasphemously hostile to the public initiatives, and our economy is a by product of a set of external forces: globalization, international trade, inflation, forex, FDI, stocks and stakes, currency appreciation and this index and that index. To Cost Rica their economy is a by-product of the people and their patriotism. The people are much more willed and patriotic than any other populace.
When the whole world suddenly woke up to realize the impacts of globalization, development, ecological imbalance, carbon emission, climate change, ozone depletion and the like, Costa Rica coolly realized the potential they had in their surroundings. When the whole developing world was protesting against the carbon emission caused by industrial giants, and the collective damage these giants caused to the whole world, Costa Rica stayed apart and looked around to find out what they could do to solve this problem. Since ecological balance is the only cure for this imminent environmental disaster, Costa Rica found a never-ever exhausting resource in the mountain ranges, timber farms, hill locks and lagoons.
Their innovative thinking in this line made them come up with the idea called ecosystem service. Ecosystem service is normally done by nature. When we depend on our nature in a natural way, the nature shows the generosity to keep the resources balanced. Nature has an inimitable mechanism to recycle things into resources. This has been going on for ages, and when man’s dependency crossed the level of nature’s natural ability to recycle, it started to react in the form of climate change, rising temperature, melting glaciers, fall in rainfall etc. for example, the amount of carbon emission is far beyond nature’s endurance, and nature is unable to recycle this much CO2 into Oxygen.
Cost Rica has been intelligent enough to understand this vicious circle, and Cost Ricans had been pondering over a solution to this. And finally they came up with a novel initiative: a participatory ecology maintenance endeavour in which any willing individual will be rewarded by cash if he/she is ready to protect certain area of ecology following the conditions stipulated by the State. The initiative was oversubscribed by people of all statuses, including tribal and aborigines.
The government announced that any individual land owner who has got minimum one hector of land and is willing to maintain it following the ecological standards set by the government will be given $60 per year as ecosystem cost. And the defined services for which this cost is paid are biodiversity, water, carbon sequestration and scenic beauty. And of course performance indicators are set and elaborate monitoring and assessment exercises are being periodically carried out. The result? Today, ecotourism is Costa Rica’s number one industry. Though this initiative cost the exchequer nearly 20 Million US Dollars per year, it is worth it. The revenue they generate via tourism is many times more than this.
Among those factors that have played key roles in achieving this goal, universalisation of education is the first and foremost. Other factors are: fall in the price of export items, impact of carbon trading, decentralization, commitment to financial incentives and a command and control state.
How far is the above innovative environment management system effective in our God’s own country, Kerala? Do we have enough individual land owners with not less than one hector of land? Do we have enough tourism spots that could be promoted on the basis ecological services? Do we not still have enough forest cover to keep our environment balanced or free from the shackles of global climatic fluctuations? Can our forests be protected without the participation of individuals? How many of us are conscious of the fact that there are innumerable number of eco-friendly business initiatives that could be promoted without the government’s intervention and investments? Are these ecosystem-service-related businesses not potential enough to bring in revenue, generate employment, protect the surroundings, and above all, keep the CO2 recycled and thereby maintain the most-oft-discussed ecological equilibrium? Here there is enough room for very serious thoughts and deliberations in this direction. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
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