The Spanish company Liberty Seguros has designated 48,430 euros ($65,000) to plant 240,000 trees in Costa Rica, the company's president Luis Bonell announced yesterday.

These trees, to cover 1,800 hectares of forestlands, are expected to absorb 37,600 tons of carbon dioxide per year in Costa Rica.

Liberty Seguros, an insurance company, emitted an estimated 4,843 tons of carbon dioxide in Spain in 2005 through energy consumption at its offices.

The company hopes to be able to make up damage caused by carbon dioxide emissions through planting trees in Costa Rica and also reduce its energy consumption by 6% during 2007.

Ecology and Development Foundation director Víctor Viñuales, who is working on this project together with the Nature Foundation, said this initiative is “an example to imitate” in the fight against global warming.

Viñuales said citizens, businesses and countries should make “the economic effort” to combat global warming while it's still possible.