{"id":50050074,"date":"2022-01-07T17:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T17:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stage.dialogochino.net\/?p=50074"},"modified":"2023-04-10T20:26:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T19:26:11","slug":"50074-how-costa-rica-deforestation-millions-for-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/forests\/50074-how-costa-rica-deforestation-millions-for-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"How Costa Rica reversed deforestation and raised millions for conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"

During last November\u2019s COP26 climate change conference, the president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, signed an agreement that will see US$20 million flow towards the conservation of the country\u2019s forests, funds earmarked<\/a> to increase protection and help avoid deforestation.<\/p>\n

This new financing comes from the LEAF Coalition<\/a>, a partnership between the governments of the USA, UK and Norway, alongside some of the world\u2019s largest companies, including Amazon, Nestl\u00e9, BlackRock and Walmart. Half of the allotted funding is set to arrive through the coalition, with the remaining US$10 million part of a private arrangement between Norway and Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

On announcing the agreement, the nation\u2019s environment minister, Andrea Meza, said<\/a> it signified \u201cthe beginning of great advances in climate finance\u201d, even as LEAF and its big-name sponsors faced accusations of corporate \u201cgreenwash\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Costa Rica, however, this welcome stream of finance is the latest success for a small nation that has garnered much praise for its conservation efforts, including a reversal of deforestation over the past few decades. It is just one of several such agreements it has struck in recent years, as it leverages an ever-stronger reputation for successfully implementing conservation initiatives despite economic challenges.<\/p>\n

Costa Rica pioneers conservation in fiscal deficit<\/h2>\n

Historically, the Costa Rican conservation model has been successful because it primarily operates with domestic resources. But at times of high economic pressure, such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, international funds for conservation provide relief to the country, explained Roger Madrigal, a forestry researcher at the country\u2019s Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE).<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, Costa Rica is a middle-income country with a limited budget for investments in nature. These cooperation funds have historically been very important in the total budget,\u201d indicated Madrigal.<\/p>\n

Maintaining this funding is vital to Costa Rica, which has come to be seen as a conservation success story, for example, as the only country in Latin America to reverse deforestation<\/a>, after having had high rates up until the 1980s.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the 20th century, Costa Rica had focused its economic development mainly on agricultural activity, enacting laws that encouraged deforestation to turn land to agriculture, such as the land and colonisation law of 1961<\/a>. As a result, the country lost half of its mature forest between 1940 and 1980, according to a 2016 report<\/a> from the REDD+ initiative. Several factors led to a change of mentality towards forest in the country, the report adds, including a growth in tourism during the 1980s.<\/p>\n

As a result, Costa Rica began to implement stricter environmental regulations, new conservation policies and changes in the agricultural market. These factors halted net deforestation and allowed forests to regenerate. Currently, 59% of its territory<\/a> is covered by forests, after having fallen to as low as 40% in 1986.<\/p>\n