Deforestation in Costa Rica
Despite government efforts to mitigate deforestation, it continues to cause harm to the environment of Costa Rica by impacting flooding, soil erosion, desertification, and loss of biodiversity.
[3] Despite these numbers, the actual percentage of deforestation cannot be known for certain because these counts were taken using aerial imaging over the land legally designated for Costa Rica's timber export.
Since the 1950s, pasture land expanded by approximately 62% meaning huge amounts of forest had been cleared to make room for cattle ranching causing Costa Rica to have one of the highest deforestation rates in the world during the 1960s.
[4] The problem was worsened because during the 1960s, the United States offered Costa Rican cattle ranchers millions of dollars in loans to produce beef.
Despite these downfalls, cattle ranching still persists in Costa Rica and in 2017 35.5% of landmass was being used for grazing and 30% of estimated greenhouse gas emissions were from livestock.
[6] In the Osa Peninsula peasants squatted 10,000 hectares until President Daniel Oduber Quirós created the Corcovado National Park.
Over half of Costa Rica's existing forest cover today is under the protection of national parks, biological reserves, or wildlife refuges.
Furthermore, incentive programs designed to compensate landowners for ecosystem services and promote conservation efforts have had little influence on minimizing deforestation rates.
Deforestation, particular from cattle ranching and poor agricultural practices, can cause drought as the removal of trees increases the ground's sun exposure, evaporating more water from the soil and drying up the land.
Furthermore, as more land is cleared for livestock and pastureland, the resulting deforestation can disrupt the water cycle causing changes in the amount of rainfall and atmospheric moisture which can exacerbate the negative impacts of droughts.
Furthermore, the growing number of cattle has increased the amount of methane production, a potent greenhouse gas that heavily contributes to climate change and global warming effects.
Research shows that people are most concerned about food and water shortages, poverty, and weather conditions (i.e. heat waves) impacting communities now and in the future as a result of climate change.
[8] In general the public trend is low knowledge, high concern, yet minimal engagement in preventing the effects of climate change.
The largest factor contributing to this was the monetary incentives that Costa Rica implemented in order to incentivize land owners to replant trees.
[11] PES (Payments for Environmental Services program)[10] was founded in 1996 in order to pay farmers for implementing practices that protected watersheds and decreased the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
The scheme aims at reducing deforestation by means of replacing timber with bamboo as a primary building material and providing low cost housing for Costa Rica's rural poor.
