Tourism has an important role to play in Costa Rica’s national plan to become the first carbon neutral country by 2010, according to Roberto Dobles, the country’s Minister of Energy and the Environment (MINAE).

In a presentation organized by Horizontes, the minister addressed some 90 tourism suppliers this week suggesting ways to offset or minimize the carbon dioxide produced by tourism businesses.

First on the minister’s list was to turn off motors when tourism vehicles are not moving passengers. Dobles also stressed that everyone, whether working in tourism or not, can help offset greenhouse gases immediately by planting trees.

Providing the group with one way to do this, young environmentalists from “A Que Sembras un Abrol” (I Challenge You to Plant a Tree), complemented the minister’s talk with their plan to plant five million trees in Costa Rica by December 2007, in support of the UN´s Billion Tree Campaign (http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/)

Horizontes and several colleagues pledged to participate in this project in the weeks and months to come. "When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and the seeds of hope,"
–Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Laureate.

For more information on how you can help, contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .