Agriculture, Forests and Individuals: The Environmental Conflict in Costa Rica, 1880–2021

Through review and analysis of primary and secondary sources, this article shows how the Costa Rican agricultural system developed between 1880 and 2021, based on livestock, food production and export of wood and crops, causing severe impact on forests and other natural resources. This pressure of agriculture on nature has produced the emergence of environmental conflicts throughout the study period, initially caused by the intensive appropriation of forests and later by pollution and destruction of the natural environment. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .