Proceedings of the Workshop - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

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CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES IMPLEMENTED IN BUFFER ZONES IN COSTA RICA: CASE STUDY LA AMISTAD BIOSPHERE RESERVE Cinthia Granda 1 , Max Villalobos 1 , David Morales-Hidalgo 2 1 Master Students of the Natural Resources Management Program. UNED. Costa Rica. AMISCONDE Project Staff 2004-2007. Email: granda31@gmail.com & mvillalobos@cct.or.cr. 2 Director Mesoamerican Develop Center of Dry Tropics, National University of Costa Rica. CEMEDE-UNA. Email: dmorale@una.ac.cr. Professor of the Natural Resources Management Master Program, UNED, Costa Rica Abstract Searching for solutions to cope with the effects of global climate change has become one of the most pressing challenges facing humankind. IPCC, states that the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) is the principal driver of this phenomenon. In Costa Rica, the generation of energy, agriculture and waste management have been identified as the main sectors contributing to national GHG emissions. In this context, ecosystem management plays a central role in climate change adaptation and mitigation, because ecosystems provide important regulating services such as resilience against climatic extreme events and carbon sequestration. Due to the tight relationships between biodiversity conservation and climate change impacts, in Costa Rica, the consolidation of the country’s protected areas and their respective buffer zones has been proposed as a central adaptation strategy. This paper aims to present a variety of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in buffer zones of the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, which have effectively been implemented by the AMISCONDE project between 2004- 2007. Strategies such as: improving the biological connectivity, a Conservation Coffee Program implementation, flagship species definition and Payments for Environmental Services (PES) will be presented and the lesson learned during the project period will be discussed. This information can serve as a basis for future initiatives in protected area buffer zones in tropical areas within the context of biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. Keywords: Climate Change, Adaptation, Mitigation, Buffer Zones, AMISCONDE, Costa Rica. 1. Introduction The search for solutions to cope with the effects of global climate change has become one of the most pressing challenges faceing humankind (Créach et al. 2008). Climate change refers to effects which are caused directly or indirectly by human activities that contribute to changing the composition of the global atmosphere (UNFCCC 1997). The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) is the principal driver for recently observed phenomena such as an overall warming of the climate system, drastic changes in precipitation regimes, more frequent and severe droughts and floods in tropical and subtropical regions, an increased activity of tropical storms in the Atlantic as well as shifts in plant and animal ranges, among others (Solomon et al. 2007). ‐ 32 -
For coping with the effects of climate change, two categories of responses have been defined: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation aims at reducing the accumulation of GHG in the atmosphere by decreasing emissions or enhancing GHG sinks. Adaptation refers to reducing the vulnerability of societies and ecosystems to the impacts of climate change, and may further refer to taking advantage of potentially beneficial opportunities (Locatelli 2010). Costa Rica is currently meeting its commitments as a party of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by implementing its National Climate Change Strategy. Furthermore, the country is going beyond its commitments from international agreements by officially declaring the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2021 (MINAET 2009a). For this country, the national climate change agenda has been defined around six strategic components, mitigation and adaptation, GHG inventories, capacity building and technology transfer, education and public awareness and finally financing mechanisms (MINAET 2009a). The generation of energy, agriculture and waste management have been identified in Costa Rica as the main sectors contributing to national GHG emissions (MINAET, 2009b). In 2005, agriculture was the second most important emitting sector, being responsible for 37% of net GHG emissions. Land use change on the other hand decreased the country’s GHG emissions by 3.5 Mt (CO2 equivalent); due to the recent growth of forest cover (MINAET 2009a). These data clearly show the importance of agriculture, forestry and conservation efforts in the context of the national climate change policy. Global and regional climate change is in turn already affecting biodiversity and agriculture in Costa Rica. The observed impacts include climate induced changes in productivity and alterations in harvesting cycles for important staple crops such as rice, beans and maize (Villalobos & Retana 1999, CEPAL 2010). In terms of ecosystems, a wide range of effects from climate change has been detected recently, such as shifts in bird species ranges (Powell & Hamilton 1999), alteration in cloud forming patterns in the Tilarán mountain range (Lawton et al. 2001), widespread amphibian extinctions (Pounds et al. 1999, Sasa et al. 2010) and climate induced tree growth reductions and physiological deficiencies that could potentially turn tropical forests into GHG sources as a result of higher temperatures (Clark 2007). According to UNEP (2009) ecosystem management plays a central role in climate change adaptation and mitigation, because ecosystems provide important regulating services such as resilience against climatic extreme events and carbon sequestration. Climate change induced ecosystem degradation in turn increases the vulnerability of natural systems and human societies to the negative impacts of climate change. Due to the tight relationships between biodiversity conservation and climate change impacts, in Costa Rica, the consolidation of the country’s protected areas and their respective buffer zones has been proposed as a central adaptation strategy (Jiménez 2009, INBio 2009). Currently, 166 protected areas of different categories make up roughly 26% of the national territory (INBio, 2009). However, it has become increasingly evident that the establishment of protected areas alone is not enough to ensure effective biodiversity conservation and the provision of critical regulating ecosystem services. Dudley et al. (2010) state that protected areas could maximize their beneficial role in climate change adaptation and mitigation by spatially extending the functions of protected areas, considering that protected areas do not exist in isolation and function as part of a larger landscape. Thus, protected areas must be linked to biological corridors and furthermore rely on actively managed buffer zones, in order to fulfill their conservation objectives. ‐ 33 -
Page 1: Supported by Organized by GEORG-AUG
Page 5 and 6: Preface Forests and any other trees
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Page 9 and 10: Table of Contents On this volume ..
Page 11 and 12: How can silviculture contribute to
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Figure 1. (above) Seedling density
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Peninsula in Spain by Pausas et al.
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Global climate change: from the sci
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Figure 1. The greenhouse effect. Fi
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The IPCC was created in 1988 by the
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parties that signed the Kyoto Proto
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drinking water sources as well as p
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areas normally forming part of the
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REDD+ provides a good, effective an
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FAO. 2010. Global Forest Resources
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In this paper basic approaches towa
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corroborate the expected deforestat
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e made (IPCC 2006). See table 2. Un
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changes. The systematic and repeate
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Case Study: Clean Development Mecha
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Pasapera community from the Chuluca
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Timber harvesting is legally prohib
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Table 3. Establishment Costs with a
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Contribution of remote sensing to R
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natural processes and human practic
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Therefore, someday, they will stop
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estimated for those same strata eit
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An Overview of Carbon Markets Binit
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Three types of flexible mechanisms
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and Degradation (REDD), and Improve
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Contact: Prof. Dr. Christoph Kleinn
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Thursday, 2.12.2010 Arrival All day
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For directions to the conference ce
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12:30 - 14:00 h Lunch break Moderat
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PARTICIPANTS University Family name
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FOREST DAY 4 VENUE Cancun Center, C
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Appendix 2: Forest Day 4, Programme
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Harnessing REDD+ to sustainably man
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national forest inventories present
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Appendix 4: The Cancún Agreement S
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(c) All Parties should cooperate, c
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(h) Strengthening data, information
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32. Invites all Parties to strength
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(b) The revision of guidelines for
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64. Also decides that information c
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any recommendations for draft decis
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