Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Curridabat Municipality
A bee hotel, part of Curridabat’s drive to welcome and protect pollinators. Costa Rica takes environmental issues seriously, which has made it a popular destination.

Some folks believe that many of the troubling aspects of our world will get fixed after coronavirus. Some say that’s unlikely. Others expect everything to get worse — problems such as inequality, nationalism, and environmental degradation.

The only prediction I’m confident about is that it will be a long time before we know. Meanwhile, stories from around the world are showing us options — often completely different ways of being.

Consider this story. Patrick Greenfield reports at the Guardian that a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica, is taking environmental quality very seriously. In fact, the attitude toward nature nationwide has made this part of Central America a desirable destination in normal times. We ourselves went there when the kids were young.

” ‘Pollinators were the key,’ says Edgar Mora, reflecting on the decision to recognise every bee, bat, hummingbird and butterfly as a citizen of Curridabat during his 12-year spell as mayor.

‘Pollinators are the consultants of the natural world, supreme reproducers and they don’t charge for it. The plan to convert every street into a biocorridor and every neighbourhood into an ecosystem required a relationship with them.’

“The move to extend citizenship to pollinators, trees and native plants in Curridabat has been crucial to the municipality’s transformation from an unremarkable suburb of the Costa Rican capital, San José, into a pioneering haven for urban wildlife.

“Now known as ‘Ciudad Dulce’ – Sweet City – Curridabat’s urban planning has been reimagined around its non-human inhabitants. Green spaces are treated as infrastructure with accompanying ecosystem services that can be harnessed by local government and offered to residents. Geolocation mapping is used to target reforestation projects at elderly residents and children to ensure they benefit from air pollution removal and the cooling effects that the trees provide. The widespread planting of native species underscores a network of green spaces and biocorridors across the municipality, which are designed to ensure pollinators thrive. …

“The metropolitan area surrounding San José is home to more than 2 million people – about half of the population of Costa Rica – despite covering less than 5% of the country’s area.

“Were it not for the lush volcanic peaks that surround Costa Rica’s central valley, it would not be immediately obvious that you were in the heart of one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet. Humans dominate and the country’s cloud forests, pristine coastline and emblematic sloths can feel a long way from the concrete and traffic.

“ ‘We attract a lot of tourists because of nature and conservation but there is still friction in the city,’ says Irene Garcia, head of innovation at the mayor’s office in Curridabat, who oversees the Sweet City project. …

“By the middle of the century, the UN projects that 68% of humanity will live in towns and cities, placing further pressure on ecosystems and rapidly vanishing habitats.

“But many urban planners are trying to change this relationship and the importance of green spaces in towns and cities has been recognised in a draft UN agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, often referred to as the Paris agreement for nature.

“Sweet City is just one of a number of biocorridors around the country that allow the genetic spread of species to maintain their strength. In Central America, this concept has developed since the early 2000s following an agreement to form a biocorridor network to connect jaguars.

“ ‘Grey infrastructure makes the city warm up too much. So the idea to connect green areas is to cool down parts of the city, return the ecosystem services that were there previously but have deteriorated,’ says Magalli Castro Álvarez, who oversees Costa Rica’s network of biocorridors with the National System of Conservation Areas (Sinac).

“ ‘Inter-urban biocorridors have a double objective: they create ecological connectivity for biodiversity but also improve green infrastructure through roads and river banks lined with trees that are linked with the small forested areas that still exist in metropolitan areas. They improve air quality, water quality and give people spaces to relax, have fun and improve their health.’

“Many Costa Ricans are happy to speak about the policy benefits of schemes such as Sweet City, as their response to the challenges of bringing nature into the city is part of a deeper national sentiment. It is not in this tiny Central American country’s DNA to behave as if humans were somehow set apart from nature. …

“Says the country’s president, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, who credits Costa Rica’s tradition of pacifism and respect for nature with its desire to tackle big environmental issues, ‘Even though we have a small territory, its characteristics allow us to have 6% of the biodiversity of the world in our land.’ ”

More here.