Sustainability? What's tourism got to do with it?

Daunovan McCullough

Today, we journeyed to Veritas University to hear about sustainability, tourism, and how the two are related. Veritas is a beautiful design-focused university with lots of murals and art on display from the moment you walk in. Although the scenery was gorgeous, we were there for more than sightseeing. After a brief tour, we arrived in the classroom where Dr. Helen Temple would soon give us our lecture. She has studied, researched, and taught about sustainable development in Costa Rica for nearly 20 years.

One of the definitions of sustainability that Dr. Temple gave was "People Planning Prosperity," and though it isn't perfect, one can see evidence of that plan for prosperity in Costa Rican policy. It may be easy for one to initially think that everything is going great with Costa Rica from a sustainability perspective, but there are some negatives. First, deforestation has been a problem due to farmers clearing out their land to grow coffee and other crops. Moreover, tourism also harms the environment, notably in the form of the emissions that the industry contributes. However, it's not all bad, as tourism has recently promoted sustainability. Now, landowners are economically incentivized to preserve the biodiversity on their lands and make money off of it through ecotourism.

After hearing Dr. Temple's lecture, I wondered what we can learn about sustainability, and sustainable tourism especially, from the Costa Rican example. Could we maybe implement a similar strategy in Chicago, for instance, to attract revenue from tourism while encouraging and promoting practices that are good for the environment?