Consequences of Environmental Service Payments for Forest Retention and Recruitment in a Costa Rican Biological Corridor
By W. Morse, J. Schedlbauer, Steven E. Sesnie, B. Finegan, C. Harvey, S. Hollenhorst, K. Kavanagh, D. Stoian, J. Wulfhorst. 2009
113 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Compensation to landowners for forest-derived environmental services has gained international recognition as a mechanism to combat forest loss and fragmentation. This approach is widely promoted, although there is little evidence demonstrating that environmental service payments encourage forest stewardship and conservation. Costa Rica provides a unique case study in which a 1996 Forestry Law initiated environmental service payments and prohibited forest conversion to other land uses. We examined these novel policies to determine their influence on landowner decisions that affect forest change, carbon services, and connectivity in a 2425 km² biological corridor. We used Landsat images to compare land-cover changes before and after 1996, and linked these data to landowner surveys investigating land-use decisions. Carbon stocks and storage in secondary forests were also examined. Forest change observations were corroborated by landowner survey data, indicating that the 1996 Forestry Law and environmental service payments contributed positively to forest retention and recruitment. Socioeconomic conditions also favored forest protection. Rates of natural forest loss declined from -1.43% to -0.10%/yr after 1996. Forest cover and connectivity were maintained through tree plantations and secondary forest recruitment, although forest heterogeneity increased as these forest types sometimes replaced natural forest. Carbon storage in secondary forest approached levels in primary forest after 25-30 yr of succession, although few landowners retained natural regeneration. Secondary forests will persist as minor landscape components without legal or financial incentives. The Costa Rican experience provides evidence that environmental service payments can be effective in retaining natural forest and recruiting tree cover within biological corridors.
Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Strategy and Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bc4628f61f54ee45f25ec746510f5257f9a36114
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In Global and Planetary Change
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Citations in the corpus
- Rights to Land, Forests and Carbon in REDD+: Insights from Mexico, Brazil and Costa Rica (2011, background): “Some studies suggest that deforestation rates have been effectively attenuated through direct payments in some regions [97,98] while others suggest that the fact that payments have been mostly targeted to areas with very low deforestation risk has implied a very limited impact on net deforestation [”
- Market mechanism or subsidy in disguise? Governing payment for environmental services in Costa Rica (2012, background): “efficacy at both regional (e.g., Sierra and Russman, 2006; Morse et al., 2009) and national (Sánchez-Azofeifa et al.”
- Meta-analysis of institutional-economic factors explaining the environmental performance of payments for watershed services (2011, background): “Costa Rican national PES programme 13 Drinking water supply and sediment reduction Private forest owners National government Daniels et al. (2010) Arriagada et al. (2010) Morse et al. (2009) Pfaff et al. (2008) No No El Salvador 20.”
- Understanding the impacts of Costa Rica's PES: Are we asking the right questions? (2010, background): “In agreement with these findings in the Osa Peninsula, Morse et al. (2009) found that PES played a role in forest expansion in the north Caribbean plain.”
- Biodiversity in forest carbon sequestration initiatives: not just a side benefit (2009, background): “Morse WC, Schedlbauer JL, Sesnie SE, Finegan B, Harvey CA, Hollenhorst SJ, Kavanagh KL, Stoian D, Wulfhorst JD: Consequences of environmental service payments for forest retention and recruitment in a Costa Rican biological corridor.”