Costa Rica Scores Highest Marks for Environmental Protection

According to the 2008 Environmental Peformance Index (EPI) Costa Rica is 5th among 149 countries of the world in protecting the environment. Moreover, Costa Rica was first among all American countries. Colombia was the only other country in the Americas to rank in the opt 10. It ranked 9. The EPI ranks 149 countries on 25 indicators tracked across six established policy categories: Environmental Health, Air Pollution, Water Resources, Biodiversity and Habitat, Productive Natural Resources, and Climate Change. The EPI identifies broadly-accepted targets for environmental performance and measures how close each country comes to these goals. As a quantitative gauge of pollution control and natural resource management results, the Index provides a powerful tool for improving policymaking and shifting environmental decision-making onto firmer analytic foundations.

Here is how Costa Rica fared in various categories (scale of 1 to 100):

EPI - 90.5
Environmental Health - 93.2
Ecosystem Vitality - 87.7
Environmental Burden of Disease - 1.0
Water (humans) - 92.8
Air Pollution (humans) - 83.8
Air Pollution (Ecosystem) - 99.3
Water (Ecosystem) - 78.5
Biodiversity & Habitat - 48.0
Productive Natural Resources - 97.1
Climate Change - 98.3
Forestry - 100.0
Fisheries - 99.1
Agriculture - 92.0
Adequate Sanitation - 90.6
Drinking Water - 94.9
Urban Particulates - 83.8
Indoor Air Pollution - 75.8
Local Ozone - 100.0
Regional Ozone - 100.0
Sulfur Dioxide Emissions - 98.6
Water Quality - 57.1
Water Stress - 100.0
Conservation Risk Index - 95.0
Effective Conservation - 15.9
Critical Habitat Protection - 75.0
Marine Protected Areas - 6.0

You can view the entire EPI rankings as well as statistics on Costa Rica and all other countries ranked at the EPI Website.

Also, Costa Rica’s own Cocos Island is a candidate for inclusion in the new list of the Natural Wonders of the World, which will be announced this year on July 7th at the Official Declaration Ceremony in Lisbon, Purtugal. You can place your vote for Cocos Island at the Natural Wonder Official Website. As of the last update on January 24th, Cocos Island was ranked 5th of 77 candidates.