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Costa Rica Coopeagri Forestry
Biodiversity
The project will increase the area under forest cover on 3,690 ha and promote the development of a diverse landscape, that is, a region with mixed land uses, such as agriculture, agroforestry, and natural forest at different stages of development. Such activities will create new habitats for the local biodiversity. The benefits for the fauna will however be limited to birds and small mammals since the project does not propose the establishment of large blocks of tree plantations, but small blocks up to 60 ha.
Forest species from natural regeneration will be all native. For agroforestry activities, it is expected to have a share of 50% of native species and 50% non-native, and forest plantations will promote the use of four native species, and two non-native species. At the end of the project, non native species will represent 4% of all plantations overall. The two non native species selected, meline and teak, are already planted in the project area, and many other regions of the country. The first melina and teak plantations were established in Costa Rica respectively in 1960 and 1930, and there are to date no reports of negative impacts when the plantations are established in low slope terrain and if they are managed properly (important aspect especially in the case of teak). There are also not any reports of invasiveness, hybridization, etc. for these two species in the country.
FONAFIFO has already considered the need of having seed sources for the development of the plantations both with native and non-native species. FONAFIFO has started a program of tree improvement oriented to the production of good seed quality both for agroforestry and tree plantations. Improved seed stands have been developed that belong to COOPEAGRI, its associates, or other farmers in the region and that will avoid any negative impact on existing forests. In the specific case of reforestation by natural regeneration, the project relies in the supply of seeds coming from both existing forest patches and seed-soil-bank.
Other Environmental Benefits and Risks
The increase of land under forest cover will reduce soil erosion and subsequent sediment load in streams. Additional benefits will derive from the forest ecosystems and will especially concern water resources and the mitigation of natural disasters. Flooding and landslides have been widely linked to deforestation, road construction, and other forms of development. Water related benefits include better water retention and flow regulation, which will increase the total annual water flow in the micro-watersheds and the minimum flows during the dry season, and higher quality surface water supplies. These services would especially derive from some of the forests in the North hillsides, classified as "cloud forest". The national water authority (Acueductos y Acantarillado or AyA) has studied a specific watershed (Quebradas Creek) and shown that by reforesting the watershed both water quality and flow regulation will be improved, and that the alternative of reforesting the watershed was cheaper than increasing the size of the water treatment facilities.
The change in farmers' practices brought by the exclusion of the use of fire, and the application of fire protection activities will also improve significantly the environmental conditions of the project area.
Finally, forests plantations will help reduce the pressure on existing natural forests and combat illegal logging. In fact, these plantations are producing wood materials mainly for pallets. The consumption of pallets in the country is estimated at 4,500,000 per year. They are required for the exportation of agricultural and industrial products. Without the forest plantations that wood would be imported, or taken from the remaining natural forests, which may require the harvest of 7,800 hectares of natural forest per year.
The project will monitor these environmental impacts and benefits using four main criteria: Landscape, Biodiversity, Water and Soil. A set of indicators for each criterion will be selected. Some of the suggested indicators related to water include water quality, flow regulation, and sediment charge in selected watersheds. A baseline study will also be established using existing GIS data such as forest cover maps and high-resolution satellite images and aerial photos of the project area.
Socio-economic benefits and risks
Farmers will directly benefit from the project through the payment for environmental services produced by them. These payments represent approximately 87% of the total project budget. In addition, the COOPEAGRI tree nursery will provide employment for 10 people to produce the trees. The payments received by the farmers will allow them to develop the reforestation activities, such as area fencing, tree planting, and maintenance (wedding, fire protection, hunting prevention, etc). Additional labor opportunities could be created if farmers contract labor to help them in these activities, although it is expected that most of the farmers will perform these works themselves or with help of the family members.
In addition, downstream communities will benefit from the environmental benefits produced by forest production activities. In particular, irrigators and municipal water utilities that require adequate water supplies during the dry season will benefit from the water related improvements. Water users will benefit from the higher quality surface water supplies.
The activities developed are integrated into the production activities of the farmers who voluntarily participate. All the lands in the project are privately owned and land tenure is well consolidated in this region colonized 50 to 60 years ago by "criollo" settlers coming from the Central Part of the country (San Jose-Aserri-Cartago). The project will therefore help maintain food security and the present income of farmers.
FONAFIFO is currently following the impacts of the PSA-program through contracting periodical technical and social evaluations. The socioeconomic impacts of the proposed project will be evaluated as part of them. The results of the evaluation are public, and will help identify any negative impacts and measures to correct them.
No negative socioeconomic impacts are however anticipated given the wide participation of farmers in the project. In fact, the project is supported by COOPEAGRI, a well-consolidated cooperative that groups 10,162 farmers that are presently dedicated to agriculture activities, and that includes in its operation rural committees to audit the activities of the organization. Furthermore, investment decisions will be made by the farmers themselves, who will sign contracts of payments for environmental services with FONAFIFO, which establishes that they will receive the payments if they do the reforestation according with the operational manuals of the program. In this sense, farmers are free to take their own decisions, as long as they comply with the PSA contract. They will in addition receive training from COOPEAGRI as part of the project in several topics including both agriculture production activities and communal organization.
Leakage
The risk for agriculture or cattle raising activities to be displaced to other regions is very low. All the lands in the project are privately owned and land tenure is well consolidated in this region colonized 50 to 60 years ago by "criollo" settlers coming from the Central Part of the country (San Jose-Aserri-Cartago). In the case of agroforestry activities, farmers will be able to continue their production activities, especially since the systems promoted in the project allow a good integration of the tree component with other production activities. Commercial forest plantations and reforestation by assisted regeneration will be developed in pasture lands that presently have a low to no animal density, and will only cover 12.6% of the total area of pastures of the project area. There is no contradiction because even in medium to high quality site the cattle density is very low. Finally, the model proposed by the project allows the farmers to select a specific forestry activity according to the land use capacity of their farms and therefore does not compete with the present land uses of the farmers. Such matching includes for example reforestation by natural regeneration in the hillsides, agroforestry in the good croplands, and forestry plantations in the good sites with pastures.
Risk of Non Permanence
The model proposed by the project does not compete with the present land use and economic activities of the farmers as it allows them to select a specific forestry activity according to the land use capacity of their farms. Such matching includes for example reforestation by natural regeneration in the hillsides, agroforestry in the good croplands, and forestry plantations in the good sites with pastures. The forest generated by natural generation will be later eligible to the Environmental Services Program (PSA), under the Forest Protection modality, which will help ensure the permanence of the carbon storage in these areas. The carbon stored in agroforestry and forest plantations will have a permanence between 15 and 20 years. These trees would however be replanted again if the market for carbon credits develops as expected. Finally, the few patches of natural forest remaining in the project area are privately owned. The PSA gives value to these lands covered with forest, therefore the logical decision of the farmers is to conserve the natural forest.
To mitigate the risks that farmers will not be willing to provide an adequate management of the forest plantations, the project must implement from the beginning a training program for the farmers, and the development of mechanisms to link the incomes from carbon credits to adequate and timely application of forest management practices. A second alternative is to establish a reserve of carbon credits in order to cover any potential problem in the implementation of the project.
Natural fires are not common in the project area. The main risk associated with fire comes from carelessness and the use of fire for agriculture practices to promote new shoot growth. The protocol for reforestation using natural regeneration explicitly excludes the use of fires, and the application of fire protection activities, such as firebreaks, "rondas", and prevention signs in the project areas will be used to mitigate this risk.
Permanence will finally be enhanced by the technical capacity developed in Costa Rica and by FONAFIFO in the establishment of forest plantations. Near 140 000 ha of forest plantations have been established in Costa Rica under different types of projects that started in 1979. This experience led to the selection of adequate species, to the development of programs of tree improvement, to the existence of seed banks and nurseries for different regions of the country. This experience also includes the development of forestry and agroforestry management techniques and of a forestry industrial sector that will be able at a later stage to process efficiently the small wood logs coming from these plantations, and produce long lasting wood products.
Additionality
Currently the land under the project area changes cyclically from pasture to annual crops depending of market prices. The baseline methodology used show that the most likely future land uses out of different possible scenarios in the project boundary are in order: cattle for meat or milk production, subsistence agriculture activities, cash-crops agriculture (coffee and grains), forestry and mining. Forestry is not economically attractive to small farmers. The cash flow distribution proper to these activities involves large investments at the beginning of the production process with income from harvest only incurring at the end of the production cycle, at best 12 years later. This particularity represents the main barrier to the development of such activities, and means that farmers must remain long periods of time without receiving any income. Farmers would therefore not reforest the land because they need annual incomes, and forestry activities based only in wood production are not able to generate these incomes. Under the project scenario it will possible to induce farmers to reforest pasture lands, because they are going to receive regular payments for the environmental services produced by the reforestation and agroforestry activities. Carbon payments will improve the cash flow pattern typical of reforestation activities, to make it appropriate for small and medium land owners needs.
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