Conservation Strategies of Montane Cloud Forest in Costa Rica: The Case of Protected Areas, Payments for Environmental Services and Ecotourism

During the 1970s and 1980, a series of technical reports predicted that, based on the rate of deforestation taking place in Costa Rica at the time, most of the country’s forest cover would disappear before the end of the century. The first response to counteract this undesirable situation was the creation of a system of National Parks. These protected areas now constitute the main repositories of the remaining cloud forest of Costa Rica. However, not all cloud forest is protected by the National Park System; other areas are protected by private reserves whose main income is ecotourism. Recently, Costa Rica introduced a novel system for the payment of environmental services (PES) provided by forests as compensation to forest owners for conserving their forests instead of converting them to economically more profitable land uses. The PES system acknowledges the following services of forest ecosystems: (i) greenhouse gas effect mitigation via carbon sequestration, (ii) water resources protection for urban, rural, or hydro-electric uses, (iii) biodiversity protection, and (iv) scenic value. This chapter describes the potential and current distribution of cloud forest in Costa Rica in relation to National Protected Areas, Private Reserves, and the PES system. A brief description of these and other financial mechanisms to support conservation of cloud forest is also presented.

TALENTO COSTA RICA