Forests play a key role in the water cycle, helping to maintain and improve the quality and quantity of water resources. Following this premise, the Payment for Ecosystem Services Program (PES Program), managed by Costa Rica's National Forestry Financing Fund (Fonafifo), promotes forest conservation. However, currently, the PES Program lacks a monitoring mechanism to ensure the program's effectiveness.<\/p>
Within this context, researchers from the Environmental Economics and Sustainable Agribusiness Unit (UEAAS\/EfD<\/a>) at CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center), evaluated to estimate the positive effect of the policy on water resources and provide recommendations to enhance the scope of the PES Program.<\/p> B\u00e1rbara Viguera, a researcher at UEAAS\/EfD<\/a>, stated that the technical assistance identified aspects limiting the effectiveness of the water resource protection sub-activity through the PES Program in the country and provided recommendations for improvement.<\/p> \"Costa Rica has very low deforestation rates, around 1%, so we could say that forests are being conserved due to the Forestry Law, and environmental awareness of Costa Ricans, among other factors. In this sense, the effect of the PES Program on forest cover conservation is very low, and its effect on improving the provision of ecosystem services to society is also low,\" expressed the researcher.<\/p> \"Our results suggest that PES Program efforts have not focused on areas with the highest probability of deforestation, nor on zones most relevant for water services generation, as the Program responds to various guidelines, including social and economic aspects,\" added Viguera.<\/p> How to Improve PPSA Effectiveness?<\/strong><\/p> Here are the recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of the Payment for Ecosystem Services Program:<\/p> Communicating to Share Findings<\/strong><\/p> An essential effort to disseminate information is finding spaces through which research results are shared with a wider audience.<\/p> For researchers at UEASS\/EfD<\/a>, this is highly relevant. In January 2024, they published an article titled \"Alternatives for Improving Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) Effectiveness on Water Resources\" <\/a> in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation<\/em>, authored by B\u00e1rbara Viguera, R\u00f3ger Madrigal-Ballestero, and Eduardo Pacay, along with Gilmar Navarrete Chac\u00f3n, Director of Environmental Services of the National PES authority, Fonafifo.<\/p> During the recently concluded 18th<\/sup> North American Agroforestry Conference (NAAC), B\u00e1rbara Viguera showcased this work in the session titled \"Strategic Agroforestry Approaches\"<\/em>, held on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 22, at CATIE.<\/p> This event brought together about 200 experts<\/a> and participants from countries such as the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, among others, and aroused great interest among the audience, as Costa Rica's PES Program has been and continues to be a reference for conservation in the LAC region.<\/p> <\/p> <\/p> More information:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n B\u00e1rbara Viguera <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/p><\/div>\n\n Written by:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n Marianela Arg\u00fcello L. <\/p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Los bosques tienen un rol clave en el ciclo del agua, ayudando a mantener y mejorar la calidad y cantidad del recurso h\u00eddrico. Siguiendo esta premisa, el Programa de Pago por Servicios Ambientales (PPSA), gestionado por el Fondo Nacional de … <\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":25333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"pmpro_default_level":"0","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25331"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25342,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331\/revisions\/25342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.catie.ac.cr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/pago-servicios2.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>
Researcher
Environmental Economics and Sustainable Agribusiness Unit (UEAAS\/EfD<\/a>)
CATIE
bviguera@catie.ac.cr<\/a><\/p>\n\n
Communication and Knowledge Management Officer
Environmental Economics and Sustainable Agribusiness Unit (UEAAS\/EfD<\/a>)
CATIE
marguello@catie.ac.cr<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>