Abstract
The Costa Rican Payment for Environmental Services Program (PESP) was a pioneer programme to be developed using the notion of Environmental Services (ES). The PESP has been analysed as a very promising and innovating instrument for conservation purposes. As such, many scholars analysed the PESP and discussed its efficiency and its effects on poverty alleviation. In this chapter, we adopt an institutional framework to analyse the genesis and evolution of the PESP underlying the role of stakeholders. We show that PES governance is a social construction where many stakeholders are interacting to orient the objectives and functioning of the PESP towards their vision and interests. Indeed, the main decisions regarding the programme’s features reflect the state and evolution of forest stakeholders’ power balance and their learning process.
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- 1.
These references correspond to data available on the FONAFIFO website: http://www.fonafifo.go.cr/paginas_espanol/servicios_ambientales/sa_estadisticas.htm
- 2.
The analytical framework proposed by Corbera et al. (2009) also analyses institutional performance and institutional interplay that will not be discussed in this chapter (for an analysis of institutional performance of PESP, see Legrand et al. 2011). We also will not discuss the institutional nature of PESP (Pagiola 2008), nor the efficiency of PES compared to other instruments, nor their scope of PES efficiency (Wunder et al. 2008; Kemkes et al. 2010; Farley and Costanza 2010).
- 3.
The actors can be individuals or organizations.
- 4.
The forestry regent (“regente forestal”) is a formal body created by Forestry Law 7575. They are licensed forestry engineers who have the legal power (“fe publica”) to authenticate the management plan of private landowners. Forestry regents are accredited by the Board of Agronomy Engineering (“Colegio de Ingenieros Agrónomos”) that are in charge of monitoring and control of forestry regent activities.
- 5.
According to the Biodiversity Law (1998), SINAC (“Sistema National de Areas de Conservacion”) is an institutional system of decentralized and participative management that integrates the Ministry of the Environment skills in terms of forestry, wildlife and wildlife-protected areas in order to dictate policies, plan and implement processes aimed at sustainability of Costa Rican natural resources management.
- 6.
Costa Rica has developed economic incentives for forestry since the 1970s. Before PESP, four main economic incentives were in place the Forest Payment Certificate (CAF) created in 1986, the Advanced Forest Payment Certificate (CAFA) created in 1988 to compensate landowner reforestation investments, the Forest Payment Certificate for Management (CAFMA) created in 1993 to encourage sustainable practices of wood extraction and the Forest Protection Certificate (CPB) created in 1995 to encourage protection of existing forests (Daniels et al. 2010; FONAFIFO 2005).
- 7.
The level of payment for PES-Protection in 1997 was more or less the opportunity cost of extensive cattle raising, which was one of the major alternatives to forestry from the 1960s to the 1990s (Legrand et al. 2010); it was also a mode level of the different evaluations of potential annual costs for the four services and the local market cost of renting a hectare of pasture (Castro et al. 2000).
- 8.
As the application was collective, the payment was done only when all the forests owners of the groups were complying with all the requisites. Because some farmers were not complying with some requisites, the other farmers within the collective application were not receiving payments even if they individually complied.
- 9.
In 2011, this trend towards differentiation of the level of payment was strengthened with the creation of a new PES-Reforestation category, PES-Reforestation with wood species in danger of extinction, for which a higher payment was proposed (1,470 US$ha–1 instead of 980 US$ha–1 for normal PES-Reforestation modality).
- 10.
In 2003, FONAFIFO created seven regional offices. Two additional offices were created in 2004 and 2005 by splitting existing offices to facilitate management. Today, FONAFIFO has nine regional offices throughout Costa Rica. To reduce costs, offices are generally located in SINAC regional buildings.
- 11.
In 1997, law #7575 created the ONF as a non-state public organization. Conformed by 45 forestry organizations, the ONF is the representative organization for the private forestry sector in regard to the definition of national forestry policies.
- 12.
In 1998–1999, a national workshop and three regional workshops were organized. Workshop participation was large and included representatives of various ministries, the private sector, environmentalists’ groups, universities and public enterprises for water distribution and energy production.
- 13.
The study shows that in Osa, the practice of wood extraction that was supposed to be applied to forests under PES-Management was in fact not well applied. Furthermore, adoption of sustainable management practices was shown to be ineffective in relatively small forest plots to maintain biodiversity.
- 14.
During the negotiation of this law, the Ministry of Economy proposed a fixed amount, but the forest stakeholders managed to obtain 3.5% of the hydrocarbon tax, which has enable them to raise additional funds since the increase of fuel price during early 2000.
- 15.
In spite of the increase of available funds for the programme, according to FONAFIFO executive officers, only 30–50% of the PES demands are currently covered due to lack of funds.
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Le Coq, JF., Froger, G., Legrand, T., Pesche, D., Saenz-Segura, F. (2013). The Governance of Costa Rica’s Programme of Payments for Environmental Services: A Stakeholder’s Perspective. In: Muradian, R., Rival, L. (eds) Governing the Provision of Ecosystem Services. Studies in Ecological Economics, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5176-7_12
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