Costa Rica : un paradis vert ? | Le dessous des cartes - ARTE

It's great to be back for this new episode of "Beneath the Cards."

We start on a one-of-a-kind beach, known for its whale tail shape.

Welcome to Uvita, in southern Costa Rica, and this idyllic beach, where you can even spot real whales and dolphins.

Costa Rica, nestled between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, is a small country that has become a highly sought-after tourist destination for those who love pristine rainforests, volcanoes, rivers, beaches, mangroves, and exceptional biodiversity.

Costa Rica, synonymous with a green paradise, is a place we wanted to understand – its history, its strengths, and its limitations. Let's take a closer look.

Costa Rica is a small country in Central America, nestled on the narrow strip of land that connects North and South America.

A confetti of 51,100 square kilometers, an area ten times smaller than France, yet home to a wide variety of landscapes.

Her situation is very fortunate.

Located between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south, it boasts two coastlines: the west, bordered by the Pacific Ocean, and the east, by the Caribbean Sea.

Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the country's countless landforms are shaped by powerful geological forces.

There are at least nineteen volcanoes, five of which are still active.

The most famous is the Arenal volcano, whose eruption was one of the longest in recent history.

Nestled at the foot of one of the country's three volcanic mountain ranges lies a fertile plateau, the Central Valley.

It's the country's economic powerhouse.

The region is home to three-quarters of the five million residents, including over two million in the metropolitan area of San Rosset alone, the capital city.

Thanks to its diverse climates, majestic mountains, lush tropical beaches and forests, Costa Rica boasts exceptional biodiversity. This unique characteristic is something the country actively cultivates, let's see how.

It alone boasts four percent of the animal and plant species known to date, including nearly nine hundred species of birds, two hundred and thirty species of mammals, and around twelve thousand species of plants.

On top of that, you have to consider marine biodiversity, since Costa Rica's territory extends to Cocos Island, a small uninhabited volcanic island located 500 kilometers off its coast.

It is part of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Conservation Corridor, established by Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador.

A vast protected area for several migratory species, including struggling sea turtles, humpback whales, and manta rays.

As a result, the country has successfully turned its pristine nature into a national showcase.

It has twenty-seven national parks, three of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Twenty-six percent of the territory is protected, one of the highest percentages in the world.

A pioneer in environmental protection, Costa Rica aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and has a bold energy policy.

In 2019, the country achieved the remarkable feat of generating nearly 99.9% of its electricity from renewable sources, including wind farms, geothermal power plants, and hydroelectric plants.

Proudly presenting itself as an eco-conscious country, Costa Rica also highlights other unique features.

A thriving and peaceful democratic regime, an anomaly in Central America.

Since 1949, it is the first country in the world to have constitutionally abolished its army.

A budget that is being reallocated to education and healthcare.

As a result, the country boasts a literacy rate of 97.8% and a GDP per capita of €10,546, placing it second on the Central American isthmus after Panama.

A level of development that enabled it to join the OECD in 2021, a very exclusive club of the world's wealthiest democratic nations.

Another advantage is that Costa Rica is a peaceful haven in the midst of a powder keg.

The countries of the Northern Triangle — Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — are plagued by violence fueled by poverty and drug trafficking.

Costa Rica, a green, peaceful, and democratic paradise, is seen as a miraculous exception in the region. However, this exception is not due to chance. It's the result of a unique history, and that's what we're going to explore now.

In 1502, during his fourth and final voyage, Christopher Columbus is said to have landed on the island of Uvita. Dazzled by the indigenous people's gold, he is said to have named the territory Costa Rica, meaning "rich coast."

In reality, Eldorado proved to be not very welcoming to settlers, who only began arriving in large numbers in 1563 at Cartagena.

With no precious metal mines and a small indigenous workforce, Costa Rica remained on the periphery of the Spanish Empire, governed from the Captaincy General of Guatemala.

There are no large agricultural estates. The colonists survive on export products like tobacco, which was supplemented by livestock and coffee at the end of the eighteenth century.

Due to a lack of slave labor, coffee cultivation gave rise to a unique rural society in the region.

It's made up of small landowners who own their land, cultivate it themselves, and employ relatively well-paid workers.

Costa Rican legend says that the country's egalitarian tendencies and progressive social policies originated from this initial population of small settlers.

Furthermore, after gaining independence in 1821, the state successfully maintained its unity, unlike its neighbors, which were plagued by civil wars.

In 1869, free and compulsory primary education for both sexes was established.

The major turning point was the rise to power of José Figueres-Ferrer in 1948.

Beyond abolishing the army, this progressive leader established democracy and launched social reforms, including women's suffrage, nationalization of banks, and the electricity industry.

So, let's see how Costa Rica turned a seemingly negative starting point into a strength.

Lacking the resources to develop large industries, Costa Rica decided at the end of the 20th century to focus on tourism, but not just any kind - green tourism.

It's become a key sector, accounting for 6% of GDP.

Almost nonexistent in 1950, tourism took off in the 1980s, reaching 250,000 tourists per year. By 2019, it had hit a record high of three million visitors.

In half a century, the country has successfully leveraged its "green gold" (referring to coffee) and turned it into a major tourist attraction.

As early as 1969, mirroring the great American national parks, a service for natural reserves and national parks was established.

But it was President Daniel Audoubert who truly bet on ecotourism.

During his presidency, from 1974 to 1978, the area of protected areas doubled.

He believes that ecotourism can become the foundation of Costa Rica's economic development.

It's a worldwide success.

In 2019, forty percent of tourists came from the United States, and fifteen percent came from Europe.

However, the question of the sustainability of this tourist influx is now being raised, as tourism is a very energy-intensive activity and inevitably dependent on air travel.

Because Costa Rica, an ecological Eden, also has less idyllic realities, and that's what we're going to look at now.

The main problem is intensive agriculture.

It's the second pillar of Costa Rica's economy.

Besides coffee, which we've discussed, the country is one of the top four banana exporters in the world.

In the last twenty years, it has also become the world's top producer of pineapples.

Industrial-scale production that relies heavily on pesticides and contaminates waterways, including the Rio San Juan, which borders Nicaragua.

These large agricultural plantations have also severely damaged the country's dense forests.

In 1945, seventy-five percent of the territory was covered by tropical forests.

In 1983, the number had dropped to twenty-six percent.

So, in 1996, Costa Rica took action and launched a large-scale reforestation program. This was made possible in part by farmers who were compensated for reducing their land and replanting trees.

Today, Costa Rica has managed to reforest nearly sixty percent of its territory.

Like the fight against deforestation, the country renowned as one of the happiest on the planet must overcome many challenges to maintain its status as a small green paradise.

First and foremost, we need to address inequality.

The percentage of people living below the poverty line rose from 21% in 2019 to 26% in 2020.

The growing inequalities affect, in particular, Indigenous populations, who represent 2.4% of the population.

The country is facing economic difficulties, but also a rise in organized crime.

The problem is drug trafficking, which has found a strategic transit point in Costa Rica for moving drugs from Colombia to the United States.

There you have it, a trip to Costa Rica, a land of exceptional biodiversity, carbon neutrality, and pacifism, all under the protective wing of the United States.

But this green paradise, Costa Rica, also has, as we've understood, a flip side: intensive agriculture and pesticides, pollution linked to the country's development, and let's not forget the new president, Rodrigo Chavez, who refused to ratify a treaty, the Escazú Agreement (the first environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean), a puzzling stance considering the identity Costa Rica has built for itself.

To understand Costa Rica's place in its regional geography, this atlas of Latin America, focusing on political polarization and crisis, published by "Autrement," is a valuable resource.

Continuing the journey, this second book by Stéphane Bono, "Costa Rica: A Journey to the Heart of Life," takes you on an immersive exploration of this country's extraordinary biodiversity.

That concludes this week's episode of "Behind the Scenes." Be sure to tune in next week at the same time and place. And until then, don't forget to check out Arte.tv for all of our videos.

See you soon.