Environmental problems

Blog Post #2

Environmental problem is always the most serious problem over the world. According to the reading, Inuit live in four countries of Canada, the United States, Greenland, and Russia. Inuit have rich hunting culture. They care about the climate change and environmental and natural problems. While the climate getting warmer, the natural environment getting worse, it would affect the wildlife and birds’ migration. It would have big effect on their hunting culture. The researches and statements for environmental problem for the reading are mainly for these four countries. Obviously it’s more convincing than the researches only in the United States. “For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food-sharing culture, as reduced sea ice causes populations to decline or become extinct. So you see, climate change is not just an environmental issue with unwelcome economic consequences. It really is a matter of livelihood, food, individual and cultural survival. And it is absolutely a human issue affecting our children, our families, and certainly our communities.” Inuit used their cultural example to help explain that how dangerous the climate change is.

On the website 350.org, I did not find any information about Costa Rica. However, I found some other information about environmental problems in Costa Rica.  The most serious environmental problem in Costa Rica is deforestation, which may result in flooding, desertification, and sedimentation in rivers, loss of wildlife diversity and the loss of timber. It’s a kind of big pressure for the government. Because of the development of the country, the population grows quickly in Costa Rica.  It’s like a chain that when the population grows quickly, the pollution problem becomes seriously.  Costa Rica was located in the Central America, which should be with beautiful natural views for traveling. Therefore, not only the population of the country grows quickly, but also the tourism of the country develops quickly. As more and more visitors come to Costa Rica, destroy for the nature would be larger.  According to the website news.nationalgeographic.com, “As Costa Rica's natural beauty and laid-back lifestyle increasingly makes it a mecca for well-heeled travelers and expatriates, environmentalists fear that a well-intended but cash-strapped government eventually will cave in to tempting offers from developers who, they say, would scar the country with discos, concrete beachfront houses and high-rise condominiums.”  The tourism is a main element for the economic development for Costa Rica, but also a main element for the nature damage.

Similar as Inuit’s environmental group, there is some environmental organization in Costa Rica. Environmental organization is important in every country especially these kinds of countries with beauty views and forestation.  According to the research on United Planet, there are some environmental sustainability projects for protecting the environment in Costa Rica such as ecotourism and conservation quest, wildlife conservation quest, butterfly farm conservation quest, and sea turtle conservation quest. For example, the ecotourism and conversation is about mainly about the resources. Volunteer work to preserve conservation land, flora, fauna, and water resources.  It looks like easy but it’s very basic thing for encouraging more people to save our environment.  There is another interesting project call wildlife conservation quest. Wildlife is very important in the world, and becomes more and more preciousness. When the society develops more quickly and the environment become worse, the environment would be no longer afford wildlife. According to the website, “volunteers will work at an animal rescue center or farming and ecotourism cooperative in Costa Rica. Animal victims of repossession and loss of habitat are brought in by local officials and nursed back to health at the centers before being released back into their natural habitat.” These kinds of project would encourage more people to protect the environment and avoid the deforestation in Costa Rica.

Chuqi Li

http://www.unitedplanet.org/volunteer-abroad/short-term/costa-rica/environmental-sustainability

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/12/1214_costarica.html