Perhaps one day tourists who flock to Costa Rica to see toucans, sloths, and colorful frogs will see a fee on the hotel bill to help preserve the forests.

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Edited by| Christian Megan

Latin America section -  CJ journalist

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – 7 march 2023

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 Costa Rica went from having one of the world’s highest deforestation rates in the 1980s to a nation centered on ecotourism, luring world travelers with the possibility of moving between marine reserves and cloud forests in a single day.

But the Central American country known for its lush jungle and rich biodiversity now faces a dilemma as one environmental priority reforestation runs headlong into another reducing the use of fossil fuels.

The program that has paid landowners for 25 years not to cut down trees depends almost entirely on fuel tax revenue, which stands to fade away by 2050 as Costa Rica converts public and private transportation to electricity in pursuit of net-zero emissions. That has the government hunting for alternative funding options.

Those could include new taxes or a tweaked mix of existing ones. Tourists who flock to see toucans, sloths, and brilliantly colored frogs might someday see a charge on their hotel bill to aid forest conservation. And Costa Rica will continue to pressure developed countries the planet’s biggest polluters to compensate countries doing more than their share to store carbon.

Costa Rica's reforestation got a boost last year with President Rodrigo Chaves’ announcement of $16.4 million from the World Bank for forests that are reducing carbon emissions. The program will bring in a total of $60 million by the end of 2025, money Costa Rica hopes can double the amount of protected forest.