A Tropical Forest Comeback Shows Deforestation Can Be Reversed

Costa Rica has reversed decades of deforestation, with natural forests expanding from less than 25% of the country in 1985 to well over half of its land today.

“Costa Rica is an international leader in financial mechanisms and forest cover restoration,” said Karla Alfaro Rojas, director of the Department of Institutional Communications for the Costa Rican government.

A national payment-for-ecosystem-services programme launched in the 1990s now supports more than 20,000 landowner contracts covering about 540,000 hectares of forest, rewarding protection or restoration of woodland. The recovery has also been supported by a 1996 ban on converting natural forests, a growing ecotourism economy and declining cattle profitability, together helping turn one of the world’s highest deforestation rates into a long-term forest resurgence.