Abstract
Common approaches to reverse the trend of tropical deforestation and loss of wildlife include systems of protected areas (PAs) such as national parks, payments for ecosystem services programs (PES) that provide financial rewards to landowners protecting their forests, and ecotourism that attempts to increase local economic gains and protect biodiversity while minimizing detrimental ecological effects from tourists. For example, Costa Rica successfully reversed deforestation by restoring forest cover from 24.4% in 1985 to >50% by 2011 through implementation of national environmental protection policies in the 1990s that included a portfolio of PAs, PES, and ecotourism. However, the social-ecological effectiveness of this conservation portfolio in terms of interactions between deforestation, biodiversity, and community participation is not clear across local scales. Therefore, we conducted multitemporal geospatial analysis to determine forest cover change from 2001-2017, broad census surveys to determine primate species richness and group encounter rate, and surveyed private landowners to determine participation in PES and ecotourism across four regions of Costa Rica. Net forest loss varied sevenfold across regions and occurred in both protected and non-protected areas across all regions from 2001-2017, although rates were lower inside protected areas. Primate group encounter rate varied significantly across all regions with an elevenfold difference between the region with the most primates compared to the region with the least. All but one region contained the full community of primate species present. Participation in conservation incentives also varied sevenfold across regions, with those reporting the highest participation having the highest primate density and diversity, as well as the lowest deforestation rates. These results suggest that the most effective strategy to simultaneously curb tropical deforestation, protect primates, and ensure community benefits may depend on a complete portfolio of PAs, PES, and ecotourism, rather than a subset of these strategies. Future studies will explore finer scale differences and similarities across PA, PES, and ecotourism forests, including measures of primate physiology and behavior, forest structure, and pesticide exposure.
Highlights
As tropical rainforests contain half of all biodiversity, regulate global climate, purify air and water, and serve as a source of resources for local communities, they are crucial to the health of the planet (Gibson et al, 2011; Nolte et al, 2013)
The Piro area of analysis was reduced from 1256.23 to 436.42 km2 after removing ocean and water-covered areas (Figure 2B). None of those surveyed in the Piro region were enrolled in only PES, 31% were enrolled in PES and participated in the ecotourism economy, 56% only in ecotourism, and 13% did not participate in any of these conservation approaches (Table 5)
Our results highlight the importance of protected areas (PAs) combined with local participation in ecotourism and PES as an effective conservation portfolio for lowering deforestation and protecting primate diversity
Summary
As tropical rainforests contain half of all biodiversity, regulate global climate, purify air and water, and serve as a source of resources for local communities, they are crucial to the health of the planet (Gibson et al, 2011; Nolte et al, 2013). In countries where citizens rely heavily on natural resources for subsistence and environmental laws are regularly breached, conservation policies that focus on local communities by providing economic and other incentives have become increasingly important conservation tools (Martin-Ortega and Waylen, 2018). Despite this promotion of community-based alternatives by both scholars and practitioners, little evidence exists that they are any more effective than PAs at maintaining forest quality or sustaining primate populations (Hayes, 2010; Jayachandran et al, 2017). As gaining local support is widely seen as crucial to the success of both protected area and community incentive approaches (Winkler, 2011), it is essential to improve understanding of which initiatives are more likely to encourage local participation, and ensure that participation results in maintaining tropical forests and the ecosystem services they provide
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