Livelihood in the Living Eden: Costa Rica’s Stimulation of Landowners to Become Agents of Forest Conservation and its Impacts on Sustainable Rural Livelihoods

Abstract

Costa Rica is the first country to have created a significant forest transition in which deforestation was halted and forest-biodiversity restored. This transition was facilitated through institutions that stimulated landowners to move from farming to practices that conserved forests. With a neoliberal approach rural landowners were aimed to provide forest protection within a proactive forests sector and market that provides benefits for conservation. This research analyzes the issues of adaptation landowners had due to this approach of landowner-stimulation, and how this approach has impacted rural inhabitants. It does so from a bottom up perspective, using the sustainable livelihoods framework. This framework provides a perspective on rural inhabitants access to resources, their strategies of living and working, and the outcomes of these strategies. The framework is holistic and comprehensive because it looks at these dimensions but also incorporates context and transforming processes such as government policy. This research thus analyzes how specific policy, the stimulation of landowners to conserve, relates to the dimensions of resource, strategies and outcomes for rural inhabitants, while considering the specific context of Costa Rica. It focuses particularly on the issues for sustainable rural livelihoods that have arisen, in an attempt to provide constructive criticism for improvement of policy and further research. This research is a desk research that makes use of case studies and academic literature, but also has an empirical angle using interviews with actors who have different perspectives on forest conservation in Costa Rica. First socioeconomic context and the development history of the country are summarized, as well as forest conservation policies of recent decades. Then specific policy measures and implementation through several institutions are analyzed: This has given an overview of a diverse array of measures that have stimulated landowners to participate in conservation. In the central chapter of this research interviews and case studies are analyzed for perspectives and data on how these measures have impacted the dimensions of rural livelihood resources, strategies and outcomes. In the discussion these findings are reflected upon and suggestions are given for further research and policy improvement. Results show that adaptation has been difficult for many landowners: The rural poor struggle with barriers and regulations and could be better included and protected. New strategies like agroforestry, forest plantations and (eco)tourism have changed the rural economy and created opportunities, but also impacts and livelihood insecurity. Market-based incentives have led to limited success, but also created new inequalities.