By Rafael Gallo, Co-Founder, Rios Tropicales – In 1985 Jimmy, Fernando and I started Rios Tropicales because we loved running rivers, we knew our small country of Costa Rica had some of the world’s best paddling in the world, and we wanted to share these rivers with others. It was natural to us to protect the rivers we were running, help the communities we were visiting and train fellow Costa Ricans to do what we were doing. From our years of international paddling experience we knew guide school best practices and started our own guide school right away.

Costa Rica is a small biologically diverse country in Central America, hosting 6% of all the species of flora and fauna on the planet in an area about the size of West Virginia in the USA. Costa Rica has been the global leader in the areas of conservation and sustainable tourism. Throughout its history, Costa Rica has demonstrated its progressive efforts to promote peace, conserve the environment, and strengthen the cultural identity of the Costa Rican through responsibly managed tourism development.

A recent article in Tico Times, “Grim Tourism Outlook Has Silver Lining,” discusses the impact of the global economic downturn on tourism in Costa Rica, noting that “the economic crisis presents an opportunity for the [tourism] sector to reinvent itself” and “to ensure future development in Costa Rica shares the vision of sustainability.” If handled effectively, the crisis can be an opportunity for fostering sustainable growth of Costa Rica as an ecotourism destination, concludes the report by a local tourism consulting group.

“Since I have been excited by the development of community-owned ecotourism businesses in Costa Rica over the last decade, and have given them a lot of space in The New Key to Costa Rica, I started seeing over development as a community issue too. It’s a sign that the people of a community do not have a say in what goes on there–to the point where the community’s water supply can be threatened. This has been the subject of several lawsuits in the northern Guanacaste beaches… Beatrice Blake, author of The New Key to Costa Rica

The Initiative “Peace with Nature”, which gives birth to the National Strategy for Climate Change, and which plans to convert Costa Rica in a C – Neutral country by the year 2021, asks for great changes and reveals big challenges to be overcome. This proposal invites us to redefine and re-invent our creative capacities in order to assume the greatest task human kind has ever faced both as a victimizer and as victim at the same time: to overcome the self imposed threat of climate change and global warming.

Foto Verde Tours, the Costa Rican ecotour company that I started with local ecologist and tourism entrepreneur Paulo Valerio, has grown since its inception three years ago, and this growth is providing a platform for us to expand our own benefits to conservation and local communities.
Foto Verde Tours offers open signup tours and customized photo travel. We run a number of photographic tours with set dates that have a particular theme. Some trips are co-led by other professional photographers…

On Sunday, November 23, 2008 after 3 weeks of heavy rains and rising rivers, a 90 foot wall of water crashed down the valley of the Tsküy River in Talamanca, Costa Rica. The flood devastated the community of Yorkín. With a population of approximately 250 people, Yorkín is a Bribri Indigenous community situated in an isolated location unreachable by road. Thankfully no lives were lost, however sustained unbelievable losses in a single night, and the situation remains critical. Every family in Yorkín is affected by the disaster.

Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast offers experiences completely unique from the Pacific Coast. Here you’ll encounter azure waters, blissful bike-rides through coconut groves and winding sea-side roads, spicier cuisine, melodic Patois (Patwa) mingling with English and Spanish, stronger Indigenous presence and an increasing community-wide commitment to greener living. While this may sound familiar, the Caribbean promises plenty of pleasant surprises and style of pura vida all its own.