Like so many of the world’s great success stories, it began with a simple observation of an extraordinary man.
The man was Theodore Roosevelt.
Twenty years before becoming one of America’s greatest presidents, Roosevelt had traveled to Europe to climb Switzerland’s famous Matterhorn. What he found or, more accurately, what he did not find distressed him greatly.
The mountain was almost lifeless. Where once there were many animals, there were no longer bears, wolves, goats, mountain sheep, or other desert creatures.
Although the term did not enter the lexicon for nearly another century, Roosevelt was the world’s first ecotourist and, I would argue, the most responsible person for conservation in the United States. Based on some of his experience on the Matterhorn, he recognized the need to set aside vast tracts of wilderness to save for future generations.
When he became president, over objections from vested interests, mining and logging companies, and robber barons, he set aside an extraordinary 230 million acres for wilderness, parks, and refuges.
His vision led to the discovery that the American public loved going to national parks and seeing wildlife. Sustainability proved to be more profitable over time than exploitation.
But, that was the US experience. What about Costa Rica, a place that in 1519 its Spanish governor called “the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America”?
By the mid-20th century, most of its forests had been cut or burned for farmland. The country had become dependent on the export of bananas and coffee for its economic life, and when the world coffee market collapsed in the 1970s, its future looked bleak.
But in an unlikely alliance, conservationists joined with business interests and convinced the government to set aside large tracts of land for sustainable development. In just three decades, Costa Rica allocated almost 25% of the country to parks and reserves.
By any measure, the results have been impressive. While many countries felled, cut and burned their forests, Costa Rica chose to reforest and today jaguars, peccaries and other wildlife are returning to places where they have not been seen for more than a generation. With the animals came tourists and prosperity.
Today, Columbia and Yale researchers rank it in the top five of all environmentally sensitive countries on the planet and, from being “the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in the Americas” in 1519, it jumped to the number 1 position in the place happier. in the World Index.
Somewhere in the sky, Theodore Roosevelt smiles with delight.