05/07/2026
In the middle of the 20th century, three quarters of Costa Rica was covered in dense rainforest. Then the loggers arrived, and within decades, the country lost more than half of that canopy. By 1983, only 26 percent of the land still had forest cover.
What happened next is one of the most significant environmental reversals in modern history.
Costa Rica woke up to what it was destroying. Policymakers restricted logging permits, created a national forestry commission, and in 1996 made it illegal to cut down forest without government approval. The following year, the government launched the Payments for Environmental Services program, paying landowners and farmers directly for protecting, planting, and maintaining forest on their land. Conservation became economically competitive with logging and agriculture.
The results were measurable and dramatic. Forest cover climbed from 26 percent to nearly 60 percent. The country became the first tropical nation in the world to fully reverse deforestation. It now hosts around half a million plant and animal species in an area roughly the size of West Virginia.
Tourism followed the trees. Today, half of Costa Rica's GDP is linked directly to ecotourism, which in turn depends on healthy rainforests. The country made conservation profitable, which turned out to be more durable than making it mandatory.
Costa Rica runs almost entirely on renewable energy, has pledged to be carbon neutral, and received the United Nations' highest environmental honor.
Across the tropics, the rest of the world lost tree cover equal to 40 soccer fields per minute in 2017. Costa Rica was moving in the opposite direction the entire time.
If a small country with limited resources managed to double its rainforest in four decades, what is actually stopping larger nations from following the same model?
