Costa Rica has changed its relationship with the environment, being the first tropical country in the world to reverse deforestation. Currently, the nation has more than half of its territory covered by forests, while in 1983, the remaining areas were only 26% of the total.
The country adopted measures to reward rural producers who reestablished native forests, invested in environmental education and instituted environmental reserves. The best of this is that Costa Rica has adopted these measures, transforming the preservation into financial benefits, that is, without any detriment to the economy, on the contrary, concluding that forestry activities correspond to 2% of the country's GDP, according to study by the World Bank in 2012.
In short, Costa Rica provides a lesson in sustainable environmental preservation to the world, especially to countries that deforest to stimulate agribusiness, such as Brazil.
