Costa Rica Ranks 3rd In The World in the Environmental Policy Index.

Costa Rica is ranked third in the world using the Environmental Policy Index. (EPI)

A joint initiative between the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network has resulted in the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Centers Environmental Performance Index, which has been utilized to rank 163 countries on 25 performance indicators tracked across ten policy categories covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality.

These indicators provide a gauge at a national government scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy goals.

Costa Rica is the only developing country and one of only four countries in the world to make it into the top “100-85? scorer category.

EPI – SCORES – 100-85

Iceland 93.5

Switzerland 89.1

Costa Rica 86.4

Sweden 86.0

In evaluating each country’s level of responsible environmental protection, the three following indicators were considered:

• Environmental health
• Preservation of resources
• Cultivation of beneficial, sustainable practices

The EPI centers on two broad environmental protection objectives:

1. Reducing environmental stresses on human health
2. Promoting ecosystem vitality and sound natural resource management

These objectives are gauged using 25 indicators tracked in 10 policy categories:

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH – Health outcomes resulting from the environmental burden of disease and risk factors such as poor water and sanitation and indoor and outdoor air pollution.

Environmental Burden of Disease – Measured in disability adjusted life years (DALYs). It is a health gap measure that extends the concept of potential years of life lost (PYLL) due to premature death to include equivalent years of ‘healthy’ life lost by virtue of being in states of poor health or disability. The overall environmental burden of disease integrates DALYs from poor water, sanitation and hygiene; indoor air pollution; urban air pollution; lead exposure; and climate change. Approximately one-quarter of the global disease burden, and more than one-third of the burden among children, is due to modifiable environmental factors.



Major disease burdens affected by environmental factors include diarrhea, lower respiratory infections, various forms of unintentional injuries, and malaria. This ‘environmentally-mediated’ disease burden is much higher in the developing world than in developed countries – although in the case of certain non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancers, the per capita disease burden is larger in developed countries. The environmental burden of disease integrates many environmental health risks, and as such serves as an important metric of country-level performance.




Air Pollution – The WHO estimates that, of all diseases, lower respiratory tract infections are the second most attributable to environmental factors. Such infections are frequently caused by air pollution, which is estimated to cause approximately 2 million premature deaths worldwide per year. The 2010 EPI captures the health risks posed by air pollution with two indicators: Indoor Air Pollution and Urban Particulates.



These indicators represent environmental risks faced by countries at different positions on the economic spectrum. Three billion people in the poorest developing countries rely on biomass in the form of wood, charcoal, dung, and crop residue as their cooking fuel, leading indoor air pollution to pose greater health risks in developing nations. Meanwhile, outdoor air pollution tends to pose more severe risks in rapidly developing and developed nations with high levels of industrialization and urbanization. Thus, the air pollution indicators selected for use in the 2010 EPI identify the relevant environmental risks to countries at different development levels.




Water – The Drinking Water and Adequate Sanitation indicators are included in the Environmental Health measurement because, according to the WHO, diarrhea is the disease most attributable to quality of the local environment. It is estimated that environment factors account for 94% of the global disease burden for diarrhea (WHO 2006). Measures of Drinking Water and Adequate Sanitation correlate strongly with diarrheal diseases. One of the main sources of diarrheal disease is contamination by fecal-oral pathogens, which is largely caused by inadequate drinking water and sanitation infrastructure. The WHO has estimated that 88% of diarrhea cases result from the combination of unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and improper hygiene.

ECOSYSTEM VITALITY – Reducing the loss or degradation of ecosystems and natural resources – what we term the Ecosystem Vitality objective.




Climate Change – The forecasted impacts of climate change- from sea level rise, coastal flooding, and extensive glacial deterioration to droughts, heat waves, and desertification- are already being felt globally and are projected to accelerate in severity. The impacts of climate change even at the “low end” (e.g., if we are able to limit global temperature rises to circa 2o C) will dramatically affect human health, water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems. While most greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to date have originated in developed nations, developing countries are, and will continue to be, the most affected by climate change impacts (Stern 2006).




Air Pollution – Beyond its human health impacts, air pollution is also detrimental to ecosystems. Through direct exposure and accumulation, reactive compounds such as ozone (O3), benzene (C6H6), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) negatively impact plant growth. Also, SO2 and NOX are the primary contributors to acid rain, which can diminish fish stocks, decrease biological diversity in sensitive ecosystems, degrade forests and soils, and diminish agricultural productivity.




Water – Water is essential for economic development and for the wellbeing of humans and ecosystems. The intensification of many industrial and agricultural processes and the construction of dams and levees have affected the quality and availability of water. Where water resources are over-subscribed or heavily polluted, it negatively impacts aquatic ecosystems. Monitoring water quantity and quality is essential for proper water management. This is all the more true as climatic and land use changes affect the abundance of water resources, the timing and amounts of rainfall, and rainwater runoff. Yet the number of monitoring stations remains inadequate in many countries.




Water issues are, by nature, interdisciplinary and multi-faceted. No single index can provide comprehensive information about water availability, use, quality, and access. The 2010 EPI contains three indicators that measure water quality, water stress (a measurement of areas within the country where water resources are oversubscribed), and water scarcity (a national level measure of water use divided by available water).

Biodiversity and Habitat – Human activities have altered the world’s terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems throughout history, but in the last 50 years the extent and pace of these changes has intensified, resulting in what the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment calls “a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The sheer number of species at risk of extinction (16,306 species of plants and animals listed as threatened globally) clearly reflects the threat. Biodiversity – plants, animals, microorganisms and the ecological processes that interconnect them – forms the planet’s natural productivity.




Protecting biodiversity ensures that a wide range of “ecosystem services” like flood control and soil renewal, the production of commodities such as food and new medicines, and finally, spiritual and aesthetic fulfillment, will remain available for current and future generations. Conventional management approaches have focused on individual resources, such as timber or fish production, rather than on ecosystems as a whole.




Metrics to measure performance have similarly been limited to simple output quantities (e.g., metric tons of fish caught). Recently policy goals have shifted away from this sectoral approach to managing natural resources. The result has been additional legislation aimed at maintaining the health and integrity of entire ecosystems, known as the “ecosystem approach.” For want of accurate country-level data on species conservation efforts and management of habitats, the 2010 EPI uses measures of protected area coverage by terrestrial biome and by area of coastline in addition to a measure of the protection of highly endangered species.




Forestry – Forests cover almost 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface (FAO 2006). They harbor much of the world’s biodiversity, provide invaluable ecosystem services (e.g., oxygen supply and flood control), and are a major source of traditional medicines, food products, biomass energy, wood for construction, and pulp for paper. Deforestation rates are particularly high in the tropical regions of Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. Forest planting, the natural expansion of forests and landscape restoration are only partially offsetting these losses. Because forests store carbon in their biomass and soils, deforestation is contributing somewhere between 8-20% of total annual global carbon emissions (van der Werf 2009).




At the Copenhagen climate conference (Conference of Parties 15 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) it was agreed that a mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (known as REDD) should be put into place. This could provide an important new source of funds to underwrite forest conservation, though some criticize the text for including plantation forests and for use of the term “sustainable forest management,” which many construe as meaning business as usual for the logging industry.




One of the major barriers to establishing sustainable forest practices is the lack of long-term monitoring systems to regularly assess the performance and condition of forests. Even when the scope is limited only to commercial wood production, experts have struggled to develop cost-effective methods for measuring forest resources and products. The forestry metric included in the 2010 EPI is meant to be a starting point for measuring forest management on an international scale. Its inclusion highlights the importance of forests as a global resource as well as the need for more robust international monitoring efforts.

Fisheries – Few activities have a more direct impact on the marine ecosystem than fishing and aquaculture. Overfishing of species can be disastrous to marine biodiversity and ecosystem stability, and environmentally destructive fishing equipment can devastate the habitat of marine creatures. Fisheries are also an important part of many countries’ economies, especially in the developing world. Approximately half of global fish exports by value are attributable to developing countries, and fish accounts for nearly 20% of protein intake in those countries (excluding the fishmeal and fish oil used in livestock production).



Approximately one billion people worldwide rely on fish as the most significant source of animal protein in their diets (WHO 2010). Demand continues to rise as population grows in developing countries, and as seafood has started to be seen as a healthy source of protein in developed countries. Yet, many fish stocks reached full exploitation levels by the 1970s. Fisheries management will be increasingly critical if supplies are to be sustained.




The indicators for fisheries use the concept of exclusive economic zones (EEZs): the area up to 200 nautical miles from shore over which a country has political and economic control. It is considered that fishing within this area is largely within countries’ control, even if they permit foreign fishing vessels to fish in their waters. The EEZ is also where one could expect governments to be able to make relevant policy decisions to lessen the environmental harm done by fishing activities.

Agriculture – As agriculture depends so heavily on a country’s natural resources (soil, water, and climate), sound environmental management in these areas is critical to creating a sustainable agricultural system. Growing populations and changes in diet, including the rise in demand for meat as countries such as China become more affluent, increase pressures on productive systems. In October 2009, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf called for a five-fold increase in food production by 2050 to meet global demand for food. Already, agriculture has an enormous impact on the global ecosystem. It accounts for approximately 40% of land use and 85% of water consumption (FAO 2005).




Poor agricultural policy can result in potentially negative environmental impacts, including deforestation, soil degradation, overuse of non-renewable water sources, production of greenhouse gases (especially in livestock production), pollution from agrochemicals, and destruction of natural habitat and biodiversity. Experts estimate deforestation of tropical and dry forests may drive hundreds of thousands of species to extinction in the next 40 years.




Conversely, well-managed agricultural systems can encourage the exact opposite, improving the quality of the environment around agricultural lands. Agriculture is not just an environmental issue. It is a developmental, health, and economic issue, as well. The FAO estimates that 23% of children under five are malnourished. A stable food supply is critical to establishing the basis for long-term growth and development. Agriculture makes up 3% of the world’s GDP – not an insignificant figure. Therefore, governments that support sustainable agriculture systems also help support sustainable development, health, and economic systems.




Considering Costa Rica’s economic resources as compared to its close competitors, Iceland, Switzerland and Sweden, being ranked third in the world is quite an accomplishment and big attraction for tourists who seek environmentally friendly countries.

[custom_script adID=97]

Written by VIP Member Tom Rosenberger of CostaRicaHomebuilder.com With more than 25 years of homebuilding experience, 15 of which have been in Costa Rica, construction consultant Tom Rosenberger knows the ins and outs of building and remodeling a home in the Central Valley area of Costa Rica. You can contact Tom using his Contact Us page here.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.