Page 152 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

CEntRAl CaSE STUDy

Costa Rica Values Its Ecosystem Services

UNITED STATES

Gulf of
Mexico
“Costa Rica’s PSA program has been one of the
conservation success stories of the last decade.”
—Stefano Pagiola, The World Bank

MEXICO “In the last 25 years, my home country has tripled
its GDP while doubling the size of its forests.”
Caribbean —Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, former Minister of Energy
Sea
and the Environment, Costa Rica

COSTA RICA

San José
SOUTH
AMERICA

Few nations have utterly transformed their path of develop- sustainably with limited harvesting. Since then, the harvesting
ment in just a few decades. Costa Rica has. In the 1980s, this option has been dropped, but payments are now also made
small Central American country of 4.7 million people was los- for allowing forest to regenerate naturally and for establish-
ing its forests faster than almost any other nation on Earth. Yet ing agroforestry systems.
today Costa Rica has regained much of its forest cover, boasts Landholders granted PSA contracts received payments
a world-class park system, and stands as a global model for spread over five years if they pursued these practices. Pay-
sustainable resource management. ments were designed to be competitive with potential profits
How did Costa Rica do it? The story is complex, but one from farming or cattle ranching, and today these payments
driving force came in 1996, when the nation began paying average $78/hectare/year ($32/acre/year).
landholders to conserve forest on private land. The govern- The PSA program recognized four ecosystem services
ment program, called Pago por Servicios Ambientales (PSA)— that forests provide: CHAPTER 6 • Ethi C s, E C ono mi C s, A nd s ustA in A bl E dE v E lopm E nt
translated as Payment for Environmental Services—was the
first of its kind in the world. 1. Watershed protection: Forests cleanse water by filtering
Nature provides ecosystem services (pp. 21, 134–135), pollutants, and they conserve water and reduce soil ero-
such as air and water purification, climate regulation, soil fertil- sion by slowing runoff.
ity, and pollination of crops. Historically we have taken these 2. Biodiversity (which is especially rich in tropical forests
gifts for granted and have not paid for them in the marketplace. such as Costa Rica’s).
As a result, ecosystem services have diminished as we have 3. Scenic beauty, for recreation and ecotourism.
degraded the natural systems that provide them. For this rea- 4. Absorption and storage of carbon: By pulling greenhouse
son, many economists are urging us to create financial incen- gases out of the atmosphere, forests slow global warming.
tives for conserving ecosystem services.
In Costa Rica, which had lost over three-quarters of To fund the program, the government sought money from
its forest, leaders were ready to try this approach in their people and companies who benefited from these services. For
national policy. As part of Forest Law 7575, passed in 1996, watershed protection, irrigators, bottlers, municipal water sup-
the government began paying farmers and ranchers to pliers, and utilities that generate hydropower all made volun-
preserve forest on their land instead of cutting it down, to tary payments into the program, and a tariff on water users was
replant cleared areas with new forest, or to manage forests added in 2005. For biodiversity and scenery, the country tried to 151

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