The New Economics Foundation looked at 143 countries that are home to 99 percent of the world’s population and devised an equation that weighed life expectancy and people’s happiness against their environmental impact.

By that formula, Costa Rica is the happiest, greenest country in the world, just ahead of the Dominican Republic.

Latin American countries did well in the survey, occupying nine of the top 10 spots.

Australia scored third place, but other major Western nations did poorly, with Britain coming in at 74th place and the United States at 114th.

The New Economics Foundation’s measurements found Costa Ricans have a life expectancy of 78.5 years, and 85 percent of the country’s residents say they are happy and satisfied with their lives.

When the researchers planted worn-out cattle pastures in Costa Rica with a sampling of local trees in the early 1990s, native species of plants began to move in and flourish, raising the hope that destroyed rain forests could one day be replaced.
Ten years after the tree plantings, Cornell graduate student Jackeline Salazar counted the species of plants that took up residence in the shade of the new planted areas. She found remarkably high numbers of species — more than 100 in each plot. And many of the new arrivals were also to be found in nearby remnants of the original forests.
“By restoring forests we hope not only to be improving the native forests, but we are helping to control erosion and helping the quality of life of the local people,” said Carl Leopold, the William H. Crocker Scientist Emeritus at BTI. He pointed out that drinking water becomes more readily available when forests thrive because tree roots act as a sort of sponge, favoring rainwater seepage and preventing water running off hills and draining away.

“We in Costa Rica protect four to five per cent of the world’s biodiversity, and our territory is much, much smaller than four to five per cent of the global territory,” Mr Dobles said.

“So we feel that we are also protecting humanity’s biodiversity, so all the support such as this one is always welcome.”

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly. It defines the fundamental rights of individuals, and exhorts all governments to protect these rights. The UN has translated the document into over three hundred languages and dialects. This audiobook includes readings in 21 languages, by LibriVox volunteers.”

The United Nations wants people around the world to remember that we are all humans and that we should all get along. Today many schools will celebrate the diversity of human culture.

In Costa Rica, UN day is a holiday, awesome!

“Rodriguez is credited with implementing a unique conservation policy in Costa Rica, whereby the users of a forest’s environmental services, such as carbon fixation, water, and biodiversity, are required to pay the forest’s owners for these rights. By establishing an economic incentive to maintain forests, Costa Rica was “able to start decreasing illegal logging to a rate that was unprecedented in the country,” says Rodriguez. Worldwide, the average rate of illegal logging in tropical regions is some 80 percent, while in Costa Rica it is now only some 15 percent, he notes. Costa Rica is probably the first tropical country to reverse the process of deforestation, and there are now twice as many forests in the country than there were 20 years ago, according to Rodriguez.”

“The message, simply put, is that when we measure the efficiency with which countries enable the fundamental inputs of natural resources to be turned into the ultimate ends of long and happy lives, all can do better. This conclusion is less surprising in the light of our argument that governments have been concentrating on the wrong indicators for too long. If you have the wrong map, you are unlikely to reach your destination.”

It’s a good thing they have a guide to make the planet happier.

The happiest countries on the planet are:

Vanuatu
Colombia
Costa Rica

You can even calculate your own HPI