In a suburb of San Jose, the state has decided to extend citizenship to trees, local plants, and pollinators, including bees, hummingbirds, bats, and butterflies. Such a step was taken as part of the Sweet City project. The idea of the project is to restore nature to urban areas and improve diversity through investments in green infrastructure.

Costa Rica is a country of contrasts. You can see the transitions between urban and natural landscapes, which inspire the creation of this type of project.

“The idea came from a narrative that people in cities are prone to defending nature when it is far away, when it is a distant concept, but they are negligent when it comes to protecting nature in their immediate environment,” Curridabat Mayor Edgar Mora told the Guardian. “Urban development should be, at least to some extent, aligned with the landscape instead of the other way round.”

“Pollinators are the consultants of the natural world, supreme reproducers and they don’t charge for it,” Mora explained. “The plan to convert every street into a biocorridor and every neighborhood into an ecosystem required a relationship with them.”

The project itself was well received in Costa Rica and supported by locals.

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Bees recognized as citizens of Costa Rica