Classroom Costa Rica

There’s a kid riding down the highway coming from Monteverde thinking, “Costa Rica isn’t really as developed as I had thought; it’s actually not that bad at all.” I come down the highway and see Liberia. This area is developed, it’s a city. As I turn the corner down the highway to Playa Hermosa I am shocked to see there are no lush green hillsides, just hillsides covered with trees with no leaves and torn up soil that makes this look more like a desert than a forest.
I wake up in Playa Hermosa to the sound of howler monkeys and birds. I step up on to the beach and look out into the hills, but instead of seeing a lush green hillside what do I see? I see a sight that is all too common now on Costa Rican beaches, condos. You would think the owners of these condos would like to have a green hillside instead of a brown one covered with trees that look more like bramble than anything else. You would think the owners of these places would like the actual place to look sort of like the pictures on the highway billboards. You would think the owners wouldn’t want to scare off their customers, but they don’t. After deforesting the hillside, and putting out tons of waste, these businesses still claim to be “ecofriendly,” a word that used all too easily these days.

In Costa Rica the government is working on a program called the CST (Costa Rica sustainable tourism). This gives different hotels and resorts different ratings which depend on the following criteria: the interaction of the company with the environment including amount of generated emissions, pollution and conservation measures. They also look at the company’s internal systems and process for handling waste. This also has to do with ways to conserve energy and water. Telling guests the importance of using water and electricity wisely and a company’s efforts to have people follow beach codes, as well as the interaction with the community by buying local foods is also important. This program gives hotels a leaf rating going from one leaf to five leaves. Although this sounds like a good idea I question its reliability. A few things I have read said that it is easy for rich businesses to get this rating and that the standards are too general. Also, when I visited the Ecolodge in San Luis I found that they make most of their food right there and also are very conscious about energy conservation and yet they only had three leaves. But, while I was working on the internet I found a hotel that had four leaves but had a fifty foot pool, a bar and a Jacuzzi in every room, and a complementary gourmet breakfast that definitely wasn’t the country’s normal rice and beans. How can a place like this have such a high rating and the Ecolodge not have a high rating? Well, maybe they put up little warnings in each room telling people not to leave trash on the beach but does that make them ecofriendly?
It is sad that Costa Rica might not be the way it is now in the future. In this future, that is almost knocking on Costa Rica’s door, Costa Ricans will have to tighten their rules and shut down some resorts. If they do not do this they will face the loss of all the beauty of their land and give way to the steamrollers, chainsaws and rich beach resort owners and let their beautiful country become a land of pavement, resorts and buildings.
-Lloyd

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