Costa Rica: Greenest of the green

Costa Rica has been described as the "greenest" country in the world and for good reason. The country was ranked 3rd in the world on the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (behind only Iceland and Switzerland).

And last year it topped the Happy Planet Index, which ranks countries by combining measures of their ecological footprint with the happiness of their citizens to measure the environmental efficiency with which people live their lives, making Costa Rica both the greenest and happiest country in the world.

In 2007 the Costa Rican government announced plans for Costa Rica to become the first carbon neutral country by 2021. Its currently competing with Norway, Iceland and New Zealand in a race which has been dubbed the "carbon-neutral World Cup."

More than 90% of Costa Rica's electricity already comes from renewable sources such as hydroelectric, geothermal and wind power and it plans to achieve carbon neutrality by cleaning up its fossil fuel-fired power plants, promoting hybrid vehicles and increasing tree planting to balance its emissions.

Around 25% of the country's land area is in national parks and other protected areas, the largest percentage of protected areas in the world. And it's no wonder, Costa Rica has a plenty to protect, most notable its astonishing variety of native flora and fauna.



It's amazing that despite only having about 0.25% of the world's landmass, it contains 5% of the world's biodiversity (all the planet's plant and animal species) including over 850 bird species, vitally important turtle nesting grounds and four unique species of monkey - howler, spider, white-faced capuchin and squirrel monkeys.

Costa Rica is also a center of biological diversity for reptiles and amphibians, including the world's fastest running lizard, the spiny-tailed iguana.



On this expedition, Raleigh will be working in several protected areas including La Cangreja National Park and Golfito Wildlife Reserve to build facilities like trails and viewing platforms to open up these beautiful areas to visitors in the most sustainable way possible.