In 1987, Costa Rica was 21% forest. Today it's about 57%. They saved and restored their forests by paying people not to cut their trees with money from a tax on gasoline. The country was 75% forested land in 1940, but then experienced one of the Earth's worst deforestation rates, mostly for cattle pasture. In 1996, they passed a forestry law that did two things. It made clearing forest without approval illegal, and it created Pago por Servicios Ambientales: direct payments to private landowners for the ecosystem services their standing forest provides. More than 18,000 families and cooperatives have signed contracts. Close to a million hectares have been enrolled at one point or another. But those taxes and giveaways destroyed the economy and killed all the jobs, right? Nope. 1987, the year forest cover bottomed out, is also the year the tourism boom started. Costa Rica went from 329,000 visitors in 1988 to over three million by 2018. By 1995, tourism was the country's largest source of foreign currency. Since 1999 it has earned more foreign exchange than bananas, pineapples and coffee exports combined. GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power, went from about $11,000 in 1991 to roughly $27,000 today. Growth has averaged over 4% a year since 1992. In 2025 the World Bank reclassified Costa Rica as a high-income country, the only one in Central America. It wasn't the economy or the forests. It's an economy because of the forests.