Sustainable Development in Costa Rica

STUDENT LEARNING GOALS

Enduring Understandings:
Choices that are made for the future of any nation should include as a primary concern the well-being of the peoples of that nation that includes an understanding and respect for their values and for the natural resources of the nation, and for the connectivity that exists between them.

Essential Questions to Guide the Module:
1) What can be said about developed, developing, under-developed nations?
2) What is the role of ecotourism?
3) How do globalism and internationalism differ?

Topical Questions for the Module:
1) How and Why did Costa Rica develop its high rate of ecotourism over the past 20-30 years?

2) How has the ecotourism influx effected the nation’s environment: Geographically? Socially? Economically? Politically?

3) What particular challenges have been met in Costa Rica? Which remain to be addressed?

4) How does Costa Rica protect and yet still utilize its natural resources?

5) We hear the term “developed” or “developing nation.” Of which group might Costa Rica be a member?

6)  How does Costa Rica fit inside the geographic, political, social landscapes of Central America?

7)  Has the development of Costa Rica’s ecotourism met or changed the landscapes? How?

8)  How do Ticos live? What seems important to them?

9) How does Costa Rica differ from the United States?

10) How has the influence of ecotourism created a peaceful and sustainable development of the Costa Rican nation?

What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit of study?

1) Students will know that: Costa Rica is a developing nation which is both meeting challenges and finding new challenges as a result of its recent influx of ecotourism.

2) Students will know that: There is a disparity in the economic realities for the nations of Central America that seeks to be reckoned with for the benefit of the entire continent.

3) Students will know that: Ecotourism has changed Costa Rica. Not all of its residents have been the positive beneficiaries of the changes that have occurred.

What will students be able to do as a result of this unit of study?

1) Students will be able to discern and discuss the differences between globalism and internationalism as they examine the efforts of more economically developed on less economically developed nations.

2) Students will be able to: Discuss both the positive and negative aspects of ecotourism.

3) Students will be able to: Look at Costa Rica’s kind of development and begin to consider possible solutions to the plight of other Central American nations.

4) Students will be able to: Play an active role in educating others about protecting yet still benefiting from natural resources, using principles of internationalism that support peaceful and sustainable development respectful of the values of the inhabitants of a nation.

BACKGROUND ESSAY

Like the chiming campañas (bells) of a grand cathedral, harmony plays a captivating melody amid Costa Rica’s luscious land of succulent tropical rainforest, dense vernal mountainsides, and soft, sandy beaches. The tourism that has rooted in Costa Rica during the past 40 years has given guests to the nation a view, often a literal “bird’s eye” view, of the extraordinary beauty that is Costa Rica. We take pleasure in the aesthetic, seeing wild animals in their natural habitats, and observing what to many of us are both strange and beautiful plants. Many of Costa Rica’s plants hold the key to new inventions or medicines. For example, the Willow gave us Acetylsalicylic acid, or ASA, the active ingredient in aspirin. Small rodent-like mammals that scurry around since the time of the dinosaurs are warm blooded, a fact that may have contributed to their survival as dinosaurs went extinct. All are products of a complex, miraculous system that created and sustains life on earth. It is perhaps quite natural that we would choose to have contact with such life forces. It has been said that ecotourism may well be the best hope for the survival of protected areas, as it offers an economic argument for the preservation of nature, and can be done in a sustainable manner.

But as we consider the protection of nature, we must also assuredly consider the protection and potential for peaceful sustainability of the peoples of Costa Rica, including the descendants of the original human inhabitants of this well-known paradise. It is indeed likely that more hues and shades of green dominate the country of Costa Rica than even a box of Crayolas can possibly muster. Mingled in are hot pink impatiens, maturing wildly as they color the panorama that surrounds country roads. But what of the shades of brown that color the skins of the Costa Rican peoples? In fact, in year 2000 in Costa Rica, there was one seemingly endless two-lane blacktop path that stretches hundreds of kilometers up and down the mountainside of this 19,000 square mile heaven. At times pock marked like rough skin, and at other expanses, it is flawless in its newness, the road is like a baby’s bottom. As the highway swirls through the mountainous landscape, it often feels like the gentlest of roller coasters, yet with characteristic hairpin turns, it is at places built for crawling speeds. Stop signs inside tiny pueblos bring alert to intersections where only bravado determines who goes first; and perhaps more thought has been given to traveling tour buses than to either the tiny cars of those who service the tourist industry, or those whose feet and horses still carry them to and fro.

On Costa Rica’s Pacific side, in the surf splashing Gulf of Nicoya, across from Puntarenas Beach, the island of Tortuga restfully awaits visitors each morning. The catamaran Manta Raya drops of sixty or so passengers each day, and picks up the roasted and toasted folks at 4:00 pm. The white sands of Tortuga are like highly refined sugar. This is a contrastive image to the theft of tortuga eggs of the Hawkbill, Leatherback, and Loggerhead turtles. For centuries, the inhabitants of the Pacific Central American coastline used the meat of the turtles to feed their families. Although the sea was generous with providing this meat, hunters have more recently killed turtles and carried the meat to urban markets. Is it also possible that for some Costa Ricans the price of tourism has driven up the cost of goods used in Costa Rican households to a point where some Costa Ricans may have to thieve against the species simply in order to survive? May this be yet another by-product of the same ecotourism earlier mentioned?

Perhaps before we journey to Costa Rica, we can begin to examine the large numbers of human cultures that exist in Costa Rica, complete with their own languages and customs, all of which add to the human experience and enrich us as a species. A loss of biodiversity threatens all cultures. In Costa Rica in particular those that live close to the Amazon River and Amazon Forest areas. Humans require a variety of uses of land and resources. The loss of animals or plants from any ecosystem will affect other species, possibly harmfully and in some unforeseen ways. We have often examined the associations that exist between living things. Does Costa Rica’s ecotourism  provide a  model of sustainable development that can/should be replicated in other nations that are rich in natural resources? Can this be the answer to other nations’ economic woes? Let’s take a very close look at this Central American country and see what more we can learn.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

INTERNATIONALISM AND GLOBALISM
Activity #1:
Using a Venn diagram, and working in groups of 3 students, compare and contrast at least 3 definitions of internationalism and globalism. For activity #2, we will share those diagrams and further compare and contrast our findings, to reach a class consensus on how these terms differentiate and may further help us in our further investigations of ecotourism. The sites or resources from which you extract your definitions should be free of advertising or other apparent evidences of bias. They should become a part of the full and ongoing bibliography that you will be creating for a final project for this unit on Costa Rica.

Activity #2:
Join a new group to compare and contrast evidence of both globalism and internationalism vis-à-vis articles from TICO TIMES (Costa Rica’s first English language newspaper.)  http://www.ticotimes.net/index.htm
Select 1 or 2 articles written within the last 2 years. Discuss the article with your group. Demonstrate evidence of  both global thinking and international thinking  in the article(s). Of course, depending on the article(s) you select, you may find yourself relaying either benefits or concerns for Costa Rica. Continue to add any articles you select from TICO TIMES to your bibliography.

• please see sample of a letter from Tico Times below. Bold, red,  italicized letters would seem to evidence INTERNATIONAL thinking. How?  Do you also see evidence of GLOBAL thinking in the letter? Where? Be prepared to indicate share that evidence with the class. Go to the letter

ECOTOURISM
Activity #3
What do you believe as we begin our discussion?

1) What is ECOTOURISM?

2) How many species of plants and animals are there in the world? Discuss their uniqueness to the degree that you are able.

3) Respond to the following: “If human beings do not have a use for a particular plant or an animal that lives in their proximal environment, then perhaps that living thing should not need to exist there.”

4) It is important when something becomes “extinct”?

Activity #4
Test your knowledge of ecotourism by taking a true/false quiz.
Go to the quiz


UNDERDEVELOPED, DEVELOPING, DEVELOPING
Activity #5

Review the graphs that indicate Labour Force and Employment statistics for Costa Rica. Working with a partner, you will be assigned one graph to explore and explain to the class. Indicate the X and Y axes of the graph, the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE, tell the MEAN, the MEDIAN, the MODE, the RANGE of the graph, and notable TRENDS.
*see chart below

Activity #6

Use the publication found at: Governance Matters http://www.info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi2007/pdf/c50.pdf
and the accompanying detailed Individual Indicator websites to look for trends in Costa Rica’s development during the past 10 years (1996-2006). Use the following words: strength,    weakness,    opportunity,    threat as labels to l identify trends that you observe in at least eight graphs of differing indicators.  Be prepared to discuss how you drew your conclusions about your word selections.