Sustainable Travel

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 Jose, Costa Rica, 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.