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COSTA RICA |
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Costa Rica
Offers Historic Carbon Offsetting Program
The National Chamber of Ecotourism (CANAECO)
and the National Fund for Forestry Financing
(FONAFIFO) have announced a historic
agreement that will allow Costa Rica to
offer travelers the option of traveling to a
carbon neutral destination.
The agreement, announced during the First
International Planet, People, Peace
Conference in San José will have an initial
contract period of three years.
The program, dubbed Climate Conscious Travel
(CCT), is an agreement that has been
exclusively designed by CANAECO and its
distribution chain that will allow the
tourism industry to share the costs of
offering a carbon offsetting program to
visitors while allowing tourism entities to
assume responsibility of the industry’s CO2
production. Moreover, such programs will
allow Costa Rica to more easily reach its
carbon neutral goal of 2021.
With tourism being one of the main sources
of income for Costa Rica, the effects of
carbon emissions from the transportation
industry, airlines in particular, have
become of great concern for the country.
Through this program, the industry will be
helping to mitigate the nearly 6,723,000
tons of CO2 that is produced from the
approximate 1.3 million visitors who arrive
to Costa Rica every year.
Other projects supported by FONAFIFO were
also highlighted during the First
International Planet, People, Peace
Conference, including a presentation of its
work with Mapache Rent a Car, the country’s
first carbon neutral rental car operator.
Costa Rica has long been considered a
pioneer in environmental conservation since
the creation of its National Parks System in
1977. By declaring 26% of its land as
protected territory, Costa Rica has been
able to develop one of the most intense
biodiverse places on Earth which, today,
accounts for approximately five percent of
the Earth’s flora and fauna.
In 1997, as a response to its booming
tourism, the Costa Rica Tourist Board
designed the Certification for Sustainable
Tourism (CST) program to assure a healthy
growth of its tourism offering without
taking away from its main attraction, its
environmental beauty. Today, the CST program
is considered to be one of the strictest
certification programs in the world and
includes more than 130 operators and
growing. |
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