Here you go mamasita:
Costa Rica apparently uses more pesticides than most of the world per hectare, probably because there are so may bugs and fast growing weeds here in the tropics. The organics movement here is only 10 years old and is still pretty weak. A forester I talked to told me that there are two regions of the country that produce most of the agriculture. Cartago uses pesticides indiscriminately (including some that are illegal in the US) but the other region is more conscientious. Cartago is supposed to have much higher rates of gastrological cancer than the rest of the country. Shit's fucking people up. Good thing is that they have a semi-functional social safety net which mandates that everyone has health care and receives treatment. Bad thing is they don't have nearly enough medical staff or infrastructure to provide timely/quality care to the entire population (which has tripled in the past 40-50 years). So why not trade some Cuban doctors for coffee or pineapples? Because they disapprove of Castro and like the US too much. In regards to the conservation efforts here, it appears that the specialists are split, half defining conservation as "sustainable development" and the other as "reforestation". The program I'm researching is pretty insignificant as far as I can tell. If you're going to offer monetary incentives for NOT cutting down the forest, they're going to have to offer more than $64/hectare a year. People undervalue clean air and water is everywhere. Unfortunately Costa Rica's pretty poor as countries go, so maybe an incentive based program isn't the best idea. I talked to a guy last night who was arguing that they needed to tap into their off shore oil stores, so they don't go bankrupt. I'm not convinced that they're going to go bankrupt though. The country runs on 90% hydroelectric energy and has a better public transportation system than Atlanta or Los Angeles (in my opinion). But it looks like the only thing country's got going for it is the mysterious lure of the tropical "wild". Although they have only sold carbon credits once to some European nation, I think once the UN okays trading on a regular basis, credits are going to be Costa Rica's saving grace. But because of my preconceived notions of carbon credits (ad presented by Annie Leonardhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM) Im still skeptical of this method.
