BECOMING GREEN - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 182

taught some of Costa Rica's finest naturalists. (He was so dedicated to conservation that he
purchased a tract of rainforest named La Selva to better study tropical systems.)
One of his star pupils was Gerardo Budowski, a Venezuelan student who exemplifies
how academics led naturally to ecotourism. After Budowski completed his studies in Costa
Rica, he earned a doctorate in forestry in 1961 at Yale and returned to Costa Rica to teach
and practice conservation. He was recruited by the United Nations to take part in the then-
new program of conservation and ecology. His achievements eventually included becom-
ing the president of the International Ecotourism Society in 1992. This scientific tradition,
begun nearly one hundred years ago, is responsible for educating Costa Rica's large pool
of conservationists and naturalists like Isabel Salas.
To this day Costa Rica can boast a stunning diversity of flora and fauna in a country
slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia. Costa Rica has more species of birds than
the United States and Canada combined, more butterfly species than the entire continent
of Africa, and as a “biological superpower” boasts 200 reptile species, 208 mammal species
and an astonishing 35,000 insect species.
More astounding, small Costa Rica is home to 5 percent of the world's biodiversity,
thanks in considerable degree to its conservation habits. The national parks and private re-
serves cover more than one-fourth of the country. Forests are known in Costa Rica as the
“lungs of the cities” that keep the air and water clean and protect the soil. Proportionately,
Costa Rica has more protected lands—national parks and private reserves—than even the
United States.
The marriage of ecotourism to the natural sciences was a natural fit. Ecotourism could
not exist without the forest, the birds, the animals, the wild landscapes. And in theory,
money earned from ecotourism protects the wilderness. This concept wasn't an easy sell,
not even in Costa Rica. Many people saw “ecotourism” as a thin basis for modern eco-
nomic development. I got a hint of the close calls in recent Costa Rican history that nearly
buried the prospects of ecotourism.
Late one afternoon we were slowly circling the forested Golfo Dulce Bay in our Zodiac
speedboats, hoping to see monkeys come out after the heat of the day. On this outing José
Calvo, another Costa Rican naturalist, was our guide. Birds were roosting in the trees.
Calvo thought he heard the cry of a howler. He lifted his binoculars to a thick blue-green
patch of trees and saw them—a troop of howler monkeys with an elusive squirrel monkey
by their side. “An orphan,” said Calvo. Somehow the howlers managed to munch on the
tender leaves of trees above the mangroves while bursting out their fantastic screeches. On
one branch a baby clung to her mother's back. We applauded him for finding the mon-
keys.
“When I was growing up, you could see monkeys everywhere. There were pet monkeys
on the street corner doing tricks. Especially capuchin monkeys because they are so smart.