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Adapting to a Changing Environment

Fundecor

San Jose, 哥斯达黎加

An Overview Of Our Solution

Who is this solution impacting?
生态系统
Forests
Forests
社区类型
Rural
Rural
Additional Information
  • Population Impacted:
  • Continent: North America
General Info

地址

San Jose
哥斯达黎加

电子邮件

felipe.carazo@fundecortechnology.org
Problem

受影响的人口

According to the 2011 census, Sarapiqu� County has over 57.147 inhabitants concentrated mainly in the villages of Puerto Viejo and Horquetas. The census also shows that 82% of these people live in rural conditions.

尺寸

The direct impact area of work encompasses more than 100,000.00 ha.

主要职业

Agriculture, mainly centered around pineapple and banana production, Livestock, Rural and nature based tourism

社区所依赖的本地资源,以及用于什么目的

Timber, local subsistence agriculture and extensive agriculture (pineapple and banana) for exportation, livestock for local consumption and domestic markets, biodiversity and scenic beauty for rural and nature based tourism

对资源的本地威胁

Change in land use through deforestation and ecosystem degradation and associated effects such as: erosion, flooding, landslides.

气候危害

According to the National Meteorological Institute, more intense rainfalls in shorter periods of time are expected in the next 50 years. Such trend can modify and increase the landslide pattern common to the upper mountainous watershed basin, as well as flooding pattern in the lower basin. As a result of this pattern change, the ?dry season? is lasting longer, causing less water availability. Storms are more intense and allocated in the shorter ?humid/rainy season?. These hazards are already cause severe damages in Sarapiqu�: Puerto Viejo community and surrounding settlements flood frequently collapsing its water service, road access and causing losses to the local economy. On the other hand, continuous storms have had a strong effect in livestock?s heath, as well as in commercial crop yields

敏感度等级

These hazards are already affecting local resources and communities. Changes in weather patterns have raised the risk to food, water and energy security. Crops, dairy and meat production are being affected by changes in water provision regimes and associated effects in livestock. Additionally, hydroelectric energy production could be altered due to increase rates of erosion linked to higher deforestation, and therefore can become more expensive and less affordable. On top of it all, basic infrastructure (roads, bridges, service facilities) is threaten by floods and landslides, which directly affect other economic activities including transport of goods within Central America and from Costa Rica to the Atlantic Port. Summing up, Sarapiqu� County community is highly vulnerable to predicted climate hazards.

适应能力水平

Pillars for community action, awareness and resilience exist. A solid network of 300-400 private forest owners has been integrated and operates under Fundecor?s extension and outreach programs. Such programs have successfully achieved effective and sustainable conservation of tropical forest in the buffer areas of the main protected areas. This investment has strengthened and unified the area?s landscape profile while influencing population?s economic vocation to include sustainable resource management. Nonetheless, to date, forest conservation is perceive as an isolated action front for timber provision and/or biodiversity carbon fixation services, with little integration and development of landscape management concepts that can lead to better zoning, agricultural practices and reforestation of high vulnerability areas. As a result, despite a good perception regarding resource management, social and economic resilience to associated effects cause by climate change has yet to be achieved. Therefore, our project tackles this problem directly by providing technical and strategic guidance, and developing financial schemes that help create participatory local governance structures that help identify adaptive solutions while raising funds to implement and monitor them.
Solution

Diversification into sustainable livelihoods, food security improvement and the growth of risk management culture within the community are all implied in Fundecor?s integral landscape management work. To date Fundecor?s accomplishments include: reversing the deforestation process in the Central Volcanic Mountain Range Conservation Area, influencing the evolution of Sarapiqu�?s economic model from an exclusive intensive agriculture and livestock system to a forest covered landscape where sustainable timber production and ecotourism have blossom as alternative income generating activities, as well as assuring a sustain flow of information and technical assistance for a network of 300+ farmers. Drawing upon these achievements and knowing the predicted climate scenarios, our long term goal is to go beyond the forest. We aim at promoting the integral management of all natural resources and productive activities in the area, improving coverage in forest protection and settling governances and financial schemes for the continuous construction of a Resilient Community in a Climate Smart Territory. In particular, Fundecor plans to continue providing technical assistance in sustainable forest management and reforestation, complementary to current effort joint administration of the National Protected Areas. Fundecor wants to apply learned lessons in other conservation areas while improving the protection, control and services tasks in more than 50 000 ha of protected areas within the Central Volcanic Mountain Range Conservation Area. Additionally, it is key for Fundecor to keep applying and complementing with innovative financial schemes Costa Rica?s Payment of Environmental Services Program. Furthermore, building upon such working platform we expect to mainstream resource adaptation practices, concepts and knowledge. Fundecor seeks to tackle food security threats by continuing to steer with concrete practical proposals the current production models under a vision of integral landscape management. Finally, our organization aims at improving the quality of life and resilience of the communities living in the buffer zone of the Braulio Carrillo National Park while protecting local ecosystems with an Adaptation and Biodiversity Credit program for rural development.

Results

生态成本

Increase in illegal tree cutting in other areas outside the project limits

生态效益

Improve connectivity in forest ecosystems. Reduction of water pollution

用于衡量效益的经济指标

Forest coverage area Biomass measurements Improvement in water quality

社区/社会成本

Time for communicating and validating the initiative with all the stakeholders.

用于衡量福利的社区/社会指标

Human development indicators from national census and

经济成本

Human development indicators from national census and

经济效益

Additional income for forest owners Decrease of dependency of traditional risky livelihoods

您的社区在实施此解决方案时面临哪些挑战?

The main challenge faced was to establish trust. To create an enabling environment that would lead to communal forest owners to trust and take the risk of protecting the forest for the sake of receiving ? at that moment- a potential payment for environmental services, or develop a sustainable forestry management system. The challenge was overcome through consistent and permanent outreach and technical capacity assistance process.

Action

描述用于开发解决方案的基于社区的流程,包括使用的工具和流程

Assessments of different nature have been conducted by Fundecor and external parties in order to feed, plan, monitor and verify the proposed solutions. First, and foremost, as the main source of information to understand vulnerability in the area, Fundecor has developed a detailed forest cadaster and its corresponding database holds information on each of the forest owners to whom Fundecor has ever given technical assistance in a time span of 22 years; information includes forest management plans, Permanent Sample Plots register and biologic monitoring. Information has been the basis of field monitoring, reporting and verification systems protocols used nationally, and the basis of time series analysis that have help understand landscape effects of land use change. Complementarily, more than 300 structured forest conservation and management agreements exist with such forest owners, which have allowed identifying and capturing social perceptions regarding direct field practices. Furthermore, Fundecor?s forestry engineers operate under a dynamic outreach and extension trustful relationship with each of the forest owners, which provides a unique workforce to explore adaptation action implementation at a local level. For an effective vulnerability analysis of our area of work, such information has been studied by overcrossing valuable information generated by assessments carried out by several public institutions. Among these assessments we should stress out: i. the national census of 2011 which provides a complete socio-economical assessment of the local population, ii. economic assessment of the direct and indirect costs of Climate Change developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock jointly with the Ministry of Planning, and iii. Periodically updates on projections of future climate scenarios published by the National Meteorological Institute. On top of this valuable information, Fundecor considers associated input from technical field evaluations carried out under by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Global Conservation Standard regular audits. Aside from the 300 plus network of forest owner, Fundecor participates actively in different community associations, from Touristic Chamber to the local municipality. Our participatory planning method includes the organization of workshops with local farmers and forest owners as well as outreach through site visits to potential beneficiaries of the project. These visits allow the development and research team to acquire and document under technical and scientific parameters, firsthand knowledge of the living conditions, threats and livelihoods of the rural community. Partners: Private landowners (farmers) + Direct beneficiaries of the project as recipients of the Payment of Environmental Services (PES), technical assistance in forest management and support in wood commercialization. + Own and conserve the forests + Potential to diversify livelihoods + Initiate rural development actions through the participation in needs identification workshops +Active participation in the planning and monitoring of the project MINAE + Ministry of Environment and Energy + Worked jointly with Fundecor in the conceptualization and legalization of the PES Program. + Leads environmental policies and strategies SINAC ? ACCVC - PNBC + Belongs to MINAE + Public administrator of National Protected Areas + Manages, with the administrative support of Fundecor, more than 200,000.00 ha of Protected Areas within the Mountain Volcanic Range Conservation Area + Actively participates in planning and monitoring of Fundecor?s Biodiversity Credit pilot project DCC + In charge of government?s Climate Change policies and strategies + History of with Fundecor goes back to the joint implementation efforts outlined by the CARFIX and OCIC processes. FONAFIFO + In charge of the administration of PES Program and Costa Rica?s REDD+ strategy Municipality of Sarapiqu� + Local Government GCS/FSC + Provides methodological mechanisms and endorsement for Fundecor?s work through performance and compliance audits. + Raises funds for project implementation in collaboration with Fundecor Fundecor looks back at more than 20 years of bridging the gap between sustainable development initiatives in a fragmented landscape. The construction of a Resilient Community in a Climate Smart Territory is a never ending process. A challenge for which the Municipality of Sarapiqu� is eager to tackle ? and become the first carbon neutral and climate resilient county in Costa Rica -, and for which Fundecor is ready to provide the technical and strategic guidance. Fundecor is a non-governmental organization with an interdisciplinary staff of more than 30 people composed of biologists, natural resources managers, educators, forestry engineers and development planners, all of them working under an integrated resource management model. The organization has a ?top of the notch? GIS lab and a 22 year old field based monitoring system, that consolidates the organization?s experience and role as innovative technical trusted advisor for resource management scheme, developed at field level, but replicated nationally, such as Costa Rica?s Environmental Services Payment system. In terms of administrative capacity, we have a 20+ year clean audit track following USAID standards.

关注的气候危害

Changing temperatures and weather patterns

您的解决方案如何减少暴露和缓冲/保护受影响的生态系统?

Forest conservation, reforestation and sustainable forest management in 40000 ha located in the buffer zone of the 46000 ha Braulio Carrillo National park contributes to the reduction of ecosystem exposure and protects its integrity under a functional landscape management approach.

How has your solution increased the capacity of the ecosystem to adapt to potential climate changes?

The conservation of several forest units adjacent to national protected areas provides connectivity between forest ecosystems.

您的解决方案如何减少受影响社区的暴露并缓冲/保护受影响的社区?

Forest coverage has helped diversify local economy, allowing for sustainable forestry and ecotourism to surge as alternative sources of income to traditional agriculture and livestock activities.

您的解决方案如何降低受影响社区的敏感性?

By implementing a Payment for Environmental Services, which provides 64 dollars per hectare, an economic recognition that values preservation of forests has been achieved. This payment reduces the community?s sensitivity by diversifying the income of families? owners of forest, especially of those who depend mainly on their land to subsist.

您的解决方案如何提高当地社区适应潜在气候变化的能力?

Capacity building, community empowerment and engagement have been key elements in the success of Fundecor model of work. These pillars have allowed the consolidation of the relationship with 300 + farmers. As a consequence of our effort awareness is raised and a fertile terrain for the development of a representative governance structure has been established.

Scale

这个解决方案可以在其他地方复制吗?

Yes. Actually, Fundecor experience was upscale nationally in Costa Rica, allowing the country to reverse its deforestation rate and grow forest cover from 23% in the late eighties up to the current 53%. Internationally, key elements of such model have been transferred to Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.

Overview
Solution
Scale
Rare
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