Hiking along the coastline of Cahuita National Park in Costa Rica, I reached forward to pick up a seemingly innocuous piece of trash, a small film-canister sized plastic bottle. Then I saw legs peeking out of the bottom and realized that a crab had made this bit of refuse into its home.

The better image from this moment resides on my hard drive unprinted for now, but the concept still stands here. This symbolizes Costa Rica to a ‘t.’ The “Ticos” have claimed what most of us have thrown away – unspoilt nature. Through large-scale nature reservations and support of eco-tourism ventures, the nation of Costa Rica has preserved large tracts of park land (26% of the nation’s territory), which like this plastic bottle to the crab, is highly functional, protective, rewarding, and ultimately quite homey.