Costa Rica Had One of the World's Worst Deforestation Rates — Now Its Rainforests Are Growing Back

In the 1980s, Costa Rica was losing over 100,000 acres of forest per year — one of the highest deforestation rates on the planet. By 1985, forests covered less than 25% of the country, down from nearly 75% just decades earlier. Then something remarkable happened: the trend completely reversed.

How Bad Was It?

For context, in 2024 the tropics lost a record 16.6 million acres of primary forest globally, largely to fires and agriculture. Costa Rica — a Central American nation smaller than West Virginia — was once among the worst offenders, its forests disappearing at an alarming rate to make way for cattle ranches and farms.

The Turnaround

Near the start of the millennium, the trend abruptly flipped. Costa Rica pioneered a revolutionary concept: paying landowners for the "ecosystem services" their forests provide. Clean water, carbon storage, biodiversity, scenic beauty — all of these have real economic value, and Costa Rica was the first country to put a price tag on them.

Under the Payments for Environmental Services (PES) programme, landowners receive direct compensation for keeping their forests standing. The logic is simple: if you make it more profitable to protect trees than to cut them down, people will protect trees.

A Model for the World?

Costa Rica is now one of the few places on Earth that has genuinely revived its lost ecosystems. Natural forests blanket well over half the country, and it's lauded globally as a green paradise that has all but ended deforestation.

The reality is nuanced — experts point out the PES programme is just one factor among many, including economic shifts away from agriculture, growing eco-tourism, and strong political will. But the core achievement stands: Costa Rica proved that a developing nation can choose nature and still prosper.