Abstract:
Costa Rica’s Pago de Servicios Ambientales program is a “payments for ecosystem services” program, compensating landowners for activities such as protecting forests. Its effects on forest protection in Costa Rica are examined here, by examining the incidence of forest loss outside of and within PSA areas using a global dataset of gross forest loss. Several PSA contracts and two non-PSA points were examined in detail to demonstrate their regional variability and the use of Google Earth imagery to examine forest cover. Gross forest loss outside PSA in 2010-2017 was found to be low, 0.379% per year, which PSA further reduced.
