Landowners of This Tiny Place Are Helping Save Biodiversity – Here’s How

A tiny peninsula on the west coast of Costa Rica is making a huge impact on the restoration and protection of its landscape by offering financial incentives to landowners, creating jobs, and supporting rural economies by the same token.

“The most striking thing for me is the way in which Costa Ricans have appropriated the program,” states Gilmar Navarrete Chacón, FONAFIFO’s director for environmental services. “Above all, farm owners have truly understood that there is a greater value beyond cutting the wood and selling it — that rather there is more value in having the trees, taking care of the ecosystems, being able to provide these environmental services and obtaining a good financial income for the work they are doing.”

The Osa Peninsula occupies only 0.001% of the Earth’s surface area but it is home to 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity. Through the Payments for Environmental Services (PES) program – administered by the environmental ministry’s Forestry Financing Fund (FONAFIFO) – the government is able to pay landowners for ecosystem services, making them key players in the fight to conserve forests, stopping them from generating income from agriculture and livestock among other things. PES has contributed to turning Costa Rica’s deforestation rate from one of the highest in the world to net reforestation. Launched some 25 years ago, the Fund has protected 1.3 hectares of forest by formalizing more than 19,000 contracts with landowners.