Forest protection and reforestation in Costa Rica: Evaluation of a clean development mechanism prototype

Costa Rica has recently established a program that provides funds for refor estation and forest protection on private lands, partly through the sale of carbon certificates to industrialized countries. Countries purchasing thes e carbon offsets hope one day to receive credit against their own commitmen ts to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Costa Pica has used the proceeds of the sale of carbon offsets to Norway to help finance this forest incent ive program. called the Private Forestry Project, which pays thousands of p articipants to reforest or protect forest on their lands. The Private Fores try Project is accompanied by a monitoring program conducted by Costa Rican forest engineers that seeks to determine net carbon storage accomplished o n these lands each year. The Private Forestry Project, which is officially registered as an Activity implemented jointly. is a possible model for bund led projects funded by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It also serves as an interesting example for the CDM because it was designe d by a developing country host--not by an industrialized country investor. Accordingly, it reflects the particular "sustainable development" objective s of the host country or at least the host planners. Early experience in im plementing the Private Forestry Project is evaluated in light of the main o bjectives of the CDM and its precursor-Activities Implemented Jointly it is concluded that the project appears to meet the criteria of global cost-eff ectiveness and financing from non-ODA sources. The sustainable development implications of the project are specific to the region and would not necess arily match the ideals of all investing and developing countries. The proje ct may be seen to achieve additional greenhouse gas abatement when compared against some (although not all) baselines.