05/01/2026
There’s something profoundly humbling about watching a wild creature move effortlessly through a storm.
As rain swept across the slopes of Arenal Volcano, this Keel-billed Toucan took off from the forest canopy and disappeared just as quickly into the distance. For a fleeting moment, the scene felt almost prehistoric — a reminder of what intact tropical ecosystems once looked like across much of the planet.
What makes that moment even more powerful is understanding how close Costa Rica once came to losing much of this landscape. By the 1980s, widespread deforestation had reduced forest cover dramatically as land was cleared for agriculture. Yet instead of accepting ecological decline as inevitable, Costa Rica made a different choice.
The country invested in national parks, pioneered payments for ecosystem services, and recognized that healthy forests were not an obstacle to economic prosperity, but foundational to it. Today, Costa Rica is considered a global conservation model, with forests recovering across large portions of the country alongside a thriving ecotourism economy and renewed recognition of the economic value of healthy ecosystems.
That success did not happen by accident. It happened because conservation was treated not as a luxury, but as a long-term investment in resilience, water, climate stability, biodiversity, and national identity.
As both a scientist and wildlife photographer, I often think about the role imagery plays in that process. Science provides evidence, but photographs create connection. They remind us what is still worth fighting for.
This toucan flying through the rain beneath Arenal Volcano is more than a beautiful wildlife moment. It is evidence that restoration and recovery are possible when societies commit to protecting the natural systems that sustain them.
At a time when so many environmental conversations are dominated by loss and decline, Costa Rica offers something increasingly rare in conservation: proof that a different trajectory is possible.
