“Sustainability in Monteverde is a state of mind, a way of relating with the environment embedded in the code of the people who have lived here since they were babies. It perfectly matches Costa Rica's aim to be a carbon-free country and the generalized national idea that all industries must be sustainable.”
Monteverde is a community that thrives in an environment that — in other times and for other sorts of people — would have been called hostile. It is a wilderness that takes your breath away, and is powerful that the community has learned to respect it and flourish in it.
Monteverde’s community has been practicing sustainability much before the word was popular, and conservation was a worldwide issue.
But before we dive into what conservation and sustainability mean for the community of Monteverde, let’s start with a common definition..
The definition given below includes some critical aspects of its meaning.
Brundtland (1987): This is the most commonly quoted definition, and it aims to be more comprehensive than most:
Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations.
Meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the needs of the future. That, in a nutshell, describes the story of Monteverde’s founding.
As you could read in The History of Monteverde, the conservation efforts here started soon after a group of Quaker families moved into the region and changed the area forever.
The community of Monteverde has been born, fed, and raised with a strong and quite intense drive for conservation and sustainability.
Sustainability in Monteverde is a state of mind, a way of relating with the environment embedded in the code of the people who have lived here since birth. And for a newcomer, this spirit is quite evident.
First of all, I’d like to tell you a story that illustrates the spirit of Monteverde.
When I moved to Monteverde back in June 2020, one of my first striking experiences was an invasion of army ants.
I have been in the rainforest environment throughout my life. I know army ants. You see their long trails around the forest, creating a ramble on the jungle floor.
They eat whatever is on their way. Scorpios, tarantulas, other ants, everything is food to them.
I had seen them around for a couple of weeks, but they started invading my place one Saturday morning.
I began noticing them around the balcony. Creating long lines that were moving here and there. Soon, they had completely covered the walls. It felt like one of those 1970's horror movies!
Of course, I didn't have insecticide. I am a conservationist living in the rainforest! Well! That morning I wished I had some.
My first move was to call and leave a message to my landlady, who was born and raised in Monteverde, asking her if she knew what to do about them.
Ants were getting in my house and my kitchen through the windows, eating everything stuck in the spider webs around. I was lost on what to do.
When they had covered the balcony floor and were already entirely invading the living room, I decided it was enough, and I took some hot water and threw it at them.
The first thing that struck me was that within three or five minutes tops, they were gone. Vanished. All of them.
It hit me how these zillions of ants are like one solid mind in a spread-out body.
But even more striking was the reaction of my landlady (We are talking about someone in her 70's here)
She called me a couple of hours later.
Her answer was more surprising than the whole chapter of the ants: "When ants come in your place, you take a walk and let them clean your place, that's all you have to do."
I felt almost embarrassed at making so much drama instead of allowing them to clean my place. I wish I could invite them over now and then.
When you live in Monteverde, the cloud forest is your habitat. And you are as part of it as the ants, or the flowers or the trees. And it feels so.
It is quite easy to realize this as, well, you are permanently surrounded by pristine nature.
Monteverde’s founding principles and the instinctive protection of nature were highly influential, and eventually, Monteverde was one of the first places in Costa Rica to start a real conservation effort that was reflected throughout the community.
With scientists doing research starting in the ’60s, and visitors following these scientists, Monteverde has turned into a Mecca for people who want to study biodiversity, endemic species, and many other tropical biology subjects. But also for nature lovers, adventure fans, and hiking devotees.
In 1975, the main preserve counted 431 visitors, mostly scientists and bird watchers. Two years later, Mrs. Wood, a local Quaker, opened a tiny bed-and-breakfast in her home, where tourists may stay overnight.
Things grew quickly. Visitors went from 2700 in 1980 to over 40,000 in 1991. By 2019 the region received a little less than 250,000 visitors. (1)
However, this presented some new challenges — how do you grow a tourism business, and continue to protect nature? Well, for decades the community of Monteverde was dedicated to finding ways to cope with the ever-growing tourism industry and succeeded in more ways than we could count.
So let’s start by reviewing the 4 aspects of sustainability in Monteverde.
Monteverde is home to a variety of non-profit, environmentally conscious, and community organizations. Visitors can interact with these non-governmental organizations on a variety of levels, such as studying local flora and fauna in their laboratories, or simply walking through their cloud forest trails and learning a lot about tropical ecosystems and the preservation practices that aim to keep them in place.
The following is a list of organizations that are the founders and keepers of the Monteverde private reserves, allowing research and educational programs in sustainable development:
While most of the world operates as a linear economy that ignores social and environmental costs and benefits; a circular economy seeks to find a balance that respects basic social needs and the limits of the planet. A donut economy stays in a regenerative zone with fair use of resources.
I am going to enlist some of the particular individual and collective efforts the community and the neighbors of Monteverde are doing.
Food Production and Consumption:
Transportation and energy use:
Map of the Electric Route: Electric Route Monteverde-Google Maps
Waste management and water conservation:
Forest preservation:
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”― Albert Einstein
There have been several factors that have influenced the Monteverde region’s education. From the families, the schools, and unavoidable nature immersion, the children of Monteverde learn to live with the forest as part of their homes and something to respect and love.
Since the 1960s the community of Monteverde has received a scientific community that lived within the community and the value that they give to the forests of the area permeated into the people of Monteverde.
Children of Costa Rica in general are taught environmental practices from a very early age. However, the Monteverde children are immersed in the nature they are taught to protect.
It gets into their DNA, and you can witness this wherever you are in Monteverde.
Libraries
The Library Committee has made reading possible without purchasing new books and has directed the cache, assisting in circulating resources to new owners rather than having things in disuse or sending them to the landfill. The Santa Elena Public Library's governing board has also created a space to share books with the larger community - using solar energy.
Barter: Circular resources in the area that do not rely on traditional money.
Monteverde takes environmental practices and sustainable development very seriously. And as tourism happens to be the main industry, you will find that everything and everyone in the industry is involved with sustainability and conservation efforts.
If you liked this article, you will enjoy ¨Costa Rica: Ecotourism for the Conscious Traveler¨
As a guest in Ocotea Boutique Hotel, you are immersed in all the environmental efforts of this amazing community. If you want to get involved ask our hotel and we will tell you the ways to help and support the Monteverde conservation efforts.
References:
(1) N.a. "Monteverde Conservation League Costa Rica." Monteverdeinfo.com. 5 Aug. 2021. Web. 17 Nov. 2021. <http://www.monteverdeinfo.com/community/monteverde-conservation-league>