Este informe presenta el estudio de caso correspondiente a la experiencia de Costa Rica en la implementación de su Sistema Nacional de Áreas de Conservación (SINAC). En la primera sección se ofrece un bosquejo de la situación actual de las áreas silvestres protegidas costarricenses, dando énfasis a los aspectos de la institucionalidad, la legislación, las políticas, el sistema de categorías de manejo empleado y algunos aspectos relacionados con la planificación, el manejo y el financiamiento de las áreas protegidas, así como con las amenazas que estas enfrentan.

Le présent Décret fixe les modalités d'application de la loi n° 2003-308 du 07 juillet 2003 portant transfert et répartition de compétences de l'Etat aux Collectivités Territoriales en matière de protection de l’environnement et de gestion des ressources naturelles, notamment la protection des forêts, la gestion et la protection des cours d’eau nationaux et internationaux; la gestion des déchets, la protection de la biodiversité, la lutte contre la pollution, la gestion des aires protégées; la gestion du littoral.

This Regulation determines the conditions for: management, assignment of maintenance and restoration activities; assignment of tourist activities; implementation of forest security and control issues; implementation of management issues as regards the water areas present on the territory of previously designed state owned protected areas (also for national parks, reserves).The management and assignment of activities here listed will be in full accordance with the national strategies, plans and programmes in the field of environment, including the requirements of the international environmen

In the kingdom of Thailand, forest ecosystems play a pivotal role in the livelihoods of both rural and urban communities. Rural communities depend upon the forest as a source of food, shelter and income, whereas urban communities rely on forests to sustain the hydrological cycle and as a venue for recreational activities.

El Plan de Acción Nacional de Lucha contra la Desertificación y la Sequía en Colombia es un instrumento de alcance nacional cuyo objetivo general es adelantar acciones contra la degradación de tierras, desertificación y mitigación de los efectos de la sequía, así como para el manejo sostenible de los ecosistemas de las zonas secas, a partir de la aplicación de medidas prácticas que permitan prevenir, detener y revertir dichos procesos degradativos y contribuir al desarrollo sostenible de las zonas afectadas.

This Action Plan is a national Plan with a cross-sectoral approach, addressing issues falling under its mandate in an integrated way. The timeframe is 10 years between 2006 and 2015.

The importance of restoration continues to grow, and this book integrates the restoration of forest functions into landscape conservation plans. The global conservation organization WWF has made forest landscape restoration a key topic and priority for its environmental work.  Due to the WWF’s extensive global reach, and together with its many partners and counterparts, it has acquired a significant level of experience on the topic of forest restoration at large scales.

In The National Forest Plan of 1977, the poor and mountainous kingdom of Nepal recognized the need for the people’s participation in managing its forests. In an article for RECOFTC, Dr Keshav Kanel of Nepal’s Department of Forest, records the changes in society, governance and economy wrought by this gradual – but not uncontroversial – move to community forestry.

In search of excellence deviates from the path that most authors have taken. Instead of dwelling on the failures and the negative, it celebrates the “good” and the many positive management efforts in the Asia–Pacific region. It highlights the many people who are striving for excellence in forest management and seeks to encourage others to emulate these positive efforts. Collectively, the story of forestry that emerges may be more about endeavour and ingenuity than greed, indifference and incompetence.

We summarize existing theoretical claims linking poverty to rates of deforestation and then examine this linkage empirically for Costa Rica during the 20th century using an econometric approach that addresses the irreversibilities in deforestation. Our data facilitate an empirical analysis of the implications for deforestation of where the poor live. Without controlling for this, impacts of poverty per se are confounded by richer areas being different from the areas inhabited by the poor, who we expect to find on more marginal lands, for instance less profitable lands.

We review claims about the potential for carbon markets that link both payments for carbon services and poverty levels to ongoing rates of tropical deforestation. We then examine these effects empirically for Costa Rica during the 20th century using an econometric approach that addresses the irreversibilities in deforestation. We find significant effects of the relative returns to forest on deforestation rates. Thus, carbon payments would induce conservation and also carbon sequestration, and if land users were poor could conserve forest while addressing rural poverty.