FYP HPK Report

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    FUNDACION TUVA

    Table of contents

    Pr eface ......................................................................................................................................... i

    1 In tr oduction .............................................................................................................................1

    1.1 TUVAs scope and mission ........................................................................................................................ 11.2 Political challenges of people-oriented conservation ............................................................................. 21.3 The future before us.................................................................................................................................... 4

    2 Area of influence: Cor covados buffer-zones...........................................................................6

    2.1 Landscape and society in the southeastern buffer-zone........................................................................62.2 Landscape and society in the northeastern buffer-zone ........................................................................9

    3 Phase I: Beginnings and early development (1990-95)............................................................11

    3.1 Overview.....................................................................................................................................................113.2 Project opportunities................................................................................................................................. 113.3 Organization and staff...............................................................................................................................123.4 Initial neighborhood alliances .................................................................................................................. 133.5 Agroecology applied research ..................................................................................................................143.6 Natural forest management ......................................................................................................................143.7 Tree farming................................................................................................................................................163.8 Coastal resources protection and management.....................................................................................173.9 Rural Energy and Communications........................................................................................................183.10 Summary of progress (Phase I: 1990-1995)...........................................................................................19

    4 Phase II: Consolidation and H PK Grant (1995-97)................................................................25

    4.1 Overview.....................................................................................................................................................254.2 Summary of goals and achievements for Phase II................................................................................254.3 Organizational strategy.............................................................................................................................. 27

    Monitoring of resource flows and functional overlaps..................................................................274.4 Financial development ..............................................................................................................................294.5 Main areas of organizational consolidation ........................................................................................... 33

    Staff growth .......................................................................................................................................... 33Staff hired and trained with HPK funds ..........................................................................................37Infrastructure investment: computer systems and vehicles ..........................................................38Building of institutional relations ......................................................................................................39

    4 The futur e of TUVA: Five Year General Plan (1998-2002)...................................................43

    4.1 Overview.....................................................................................................................................................434.2 Transition plans..........................................................................................................................................44Executive Direction............................................................................................................................. 44Preparatory measures .......................................................................................................................... 45

    4.3 Summary of the Five Year Plan...............................................................................................................464.4 Mission.........................................................................................................................................................484.5 The Osa National Wildlife Refuge..........................................................................................................514.6 Organizational restructuring.....................................................................................................................54

    Overview............................................................................................................................................... 54Executive Council................................................................................................................................ 54Administration and program coordination...................................................................................... 56

    4.7 Program development ...............................................................................................................................58

    Overview............................................................................................................................................... 58The Osa changing reality.................................................................................................................... 58Education and exchange: Piro Biodiversity Center (PBC)...........................................................60

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    Forest Management Research: OFTER...........................................................................................614.8 Financial autonomy....................................................................................................................................62

    Overview............................................................................................................................................... 62Osa National Wildlife Refuge Endowment Fund ..........................................................................62Piro Reserve Fund vs. endowment ................................................................................................... 63Forest environmental services (CPBs) .............................................................................................64

    Scenarios for contingency planning.................................................................................................. 654.9 Five Year Plan budget ...............................................................................................................................684.10 Timetable of Activities for the Five Year Plan......................................................................................694.11 Conclusions.................................................................................................................................................70

    Apendix I: H PK Sum mary Expense Report .............................................................................72

    Apendix II: O sa Fallen Timber Extractive Reserves..................................................................72

    Apendix III : The Pir o Biodiversity Cen ter .................................................................................72

    Apendix IV: Int egrated Coastal Management : O STS and ADECO RO .................................72

    Appendix V: Rural Energy and Communications.......................................................................72

    Appendix VI: Bosque del Cabo Business Plan ...........................................................................72

    Appendix VII: Visitor s t o TUVA projects ..................................................................................72

    Appendix VII: Financial statements 1993-1997...........................................................................72

    List of Figures

    Figure 1 : Land use in Corcovado's Southeast Buffer-zone (SBZ) ............................................ ........................... 6

    Figure 2 : Land tenure in the SBZ .................................................. .............................................................. ........ 9

    Figure 3: Total combined income 1992-1997 (operations,programs,sales)............................................... ........ 30

    Figure 4: Programs income distribution (1992-1997) .................................... ................................................... 30

    Figure 5: Total operations income Figure 6: Total programs income ..........................................................30

    Figure 7: Comparative growth: operations vs. programs and future trends.................................... ................ 31

    Figure 8: Distribution of total unrestricted grants (1992-1997) .................................. .................................... 31

    Figure 9: Distribution of income sources for operations (unrestricted)............................................... .............. 32

    Figure 10: Trendlines in sources of income (unrestricted) 1995-1997 ........................................ ...................... 32

    Figure 11 : Growth in personnel expenses 1992-1997................. .............................................. ........................ 33

    Figure 12: Total personnel expenses 92-97 Figure 13: Total operations expenses .......................................34

    Figure 14: % of operations salaries vs. all salaries ............................................................. ...................... 32

    Figure 15: % of operations salaries vs. all expenses...................................... ................................................... 34

    Figure 16: Organizational flowchart 1997........................ ........................................... ..................................... 35

    Figure 17: Number of institutional relationships (1990-1997)............................................. .............................. 43

    Figure 18: Map of the ONWR (yellow areas) ......................................................... ........................................... 51

    Figure 19: ONWR total land distribution per property (in Ha.).................................. ....................................... 52

    Figure 20: ONWR land types per property (in Ha.) ........................................... ............................................... 52

    Figure 21: TUVA Reorganization Scheme....................................... .............................................. ..................... 57

    Figure 22 : Total potential income from CPB subsidies to ONWR ................................................................. ... 65

    Figure 23 : CPB monthly income and # of Ha..................................................... ............................................... 65

    Figure 24 : Five Year Plan budget ................................................. ............................................................ ........ 68

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    List of Tables

    Table 1: Land use and relative population density in the SBZ ______________________________________6

    Table 2: Pasture land distribution in SBZ _____________________________________________________8

    Table 3 : Population distribution in the SBZ____________________________________________________ 8

    Table 4: Guaym territories in Costa Rica_____________________________________________________ 10

    Table 5: The Guaymi population of Osa _____________________________________________________ 10

    Table 6: Sources of income for the Guaymi of Osa ______________________________________________ 10

    Table 7: TUVAs early development (1990 to 1995)_____________________________________________23

    Table 8: Summary of goals Phase II_________________________________________________________ 26

    Table 9 : TUVAs institutional assets ________________________________________________________40

    Table 10 : List of all institutional relationships 1990-1997________________________________________ 42

    Table 11 : Preparatory measure for transition process___________________________________________ 46

    Table 12 : Summary of Five Year General Plan________________________________________________ 47

    Table 13: Evolution of TUVA's mission_______________________________________________________ 50

    Table 14 : Percentages of land types in the ONWR _____________________________________________ 53

    Table 15 : TUVA's assets for forming the ONWR endowment _____________________________________63

    Table 16 : PRF current and projected annual payments__________________________________________ 64

    Table 17 : Budgets for potential scenarios ____________________________________________________67

    Table 18: Income sources for potential scenarios _______________________________________________ 67

    Table 19 : Promotion options for current staff _________________________________________________67

    Table 20 : Cronogram of activities for the Five Year General Plan (FYP)____________________________ 69

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    FINAL REPORT Preface-

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    Preface

    In mid 1995 the Henry P. Kendall Foundation awarded a grant to the TUVAFoundation, a Costarican non-profit organization dedicated to conservation-with-development activities in the buffer-zones surrounding Corcovado National Park, on

    the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.

    This grant was awarded at a time were TUVA, facing the structural challenges typical ofa small non-governmental organization, needed to take a step ahead to enter a newphase of growth, increase its capacity and fulfill its long-term mission. The trust andsupport of experienced individuals and organizations as the HPK Foundation wascritical to the success of this endeavor. This document contains a summary descriptionof the entire transition process and the positive results achieved during the period ofconsolidation between 1995 and 1997. We hope that it will show that, after havingsuccessfully achieved its proposed goals, TUVA reaffirmed its stability as anorganization in the often difficult and competitive field of conservation work in LatinAmerica. We believe that the trust and support received from HPK has helped TUVA

    in taking a big step ahead and, also inevitably, has put the organization in front of a newset of challenges. Challenges that if overcome successfully again and our history is oneof overcoming many challenges-- could place TUVA within the next few years as themost visible and influential conservationist NGO in the Osa Peninsula.

    Although this document focuses on the period covered by the HPK grant (1995-1997),it starts with a description of TUVAs beginnings and early accomplishments and endswith some plans for the future, in order to give an appropriate background context anda projection of what to expect in the next five years. To make the document morereadable, financial information relevant to the HPK grant is presented in a summarizedform, using tables and figures. We hope that these figures will clearly illustrate TUVAsprocess of internal consolidation and its increased ability to handle larger and more

    complex programs, more demanding institutional relationships, and ultimately tosustain a total conservation investment in the Osa Peninsula which is today the largestand most significant in the private sector.

    We want to thank here the individuals and organizations that have made possible theawarding of this grant and that have contributed so much to TUVAs progress. Firstwe would like to thank Edward Smith, HPK Executive Director, whose seasonedexperience in this field --often crowded with many other good candidates-- led him todecide in favor of supporting a small, young, idealistic and perhaps promisingorganization, as TUVA was in 1994. Second, but not last, we want to thank veryspecially Andrew W. Kendall, who from the very beginning deposited his confidence inTUVA and that with his remarkable perception of the challenges and opportunities, has

    been a steady steering force and a source of inspiration to all of us. To him, TUVA andthe Osa Peninsula have a large debt of gratitude.

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    FINAL REPORT Introduction

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    1 Introduction

    1.1 TUVAs scope and mission

    TUVA was officially founded in 1992, after 2 years of preliminary research-actionoriented work dedicated to surveying and assessing the complex natural and socio-economic situation of the Osa Peninsula ten years after the creation of CorcovadoNational Park (CNP) and the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve (GDFR). The large gapsleft by the government in the planning of the period that followed the park declarationin 1975 and the officially unacknowledged fact that the park did actually have a humanpopulation, showed opportunities arising from the urgent need to developconservation-with-development initiatives in the parks large buffer-zones. TUVA waslaunched with the vision of contributing to the consolidation of the Osa Peninsulassystem of protected areas and with the mission of attempting to do it by way ofengaging in the less conventional and challenging field of people-oriented conservation.

    Between 1992 and 1995, the organization operated with a limited budget and a lowpublic profile. The main focus was in practical applied research and in developingstrong community relations. This focus in intense and practical field work in the regionof the Piro River, at the heart of Corcovados southeastern buffer-zone, received afavorable response from the local groups, rather hostile to the intervention ofconservation organizations since the parks declaration. With a reduced portfolio of afew small but well designed pilot projects aimed at promoting small enterprises fromthe ground up, TUVA managed to survive in the fairly competitive world ofconservationist NGOS and started to attract some attention from governmentalofficials and conservation-minded investors interested in the Osa Peninsula.

    By early 1995 TUVAs had been successful in gathering good socio-environmentalresearch data and in developing a small but comprehensive set of programs in the areasof forest and coastal-zone management and rural energy. But, perhaps mostimportantly, it had been successful in producing some tangible results. As a result, thefoundation had managed to form a good number of relationships with national andinternational institutions that were funding some of the projects. Although theprojects were running well, TUVAs operational capability was still limited by its lowbudget and an overworked and minimal staff, consisting only of the Executive Director,an administrative assistant and a part time field assistant. With an overridingcommitment to channel the largest possible percentage of the captured funds to theactual execution of projects making financial resources and technical advise availableearly on to the often disillusioned but nonetheless eager local groups-- it seemed

    important not to increase the overhead load and the size of the organization at theexpense of draining the project resources. Structurally, TUVA was suffering from thesame weaknesses typical of many other small NGOs: it could raise funds for projectsbut --as the project portfolio increased-- it could not sustain the increased operativeload (administration, staff, infrastructure, maintenance) that made project executionpossible in the first place.

    The task at hand was to find a level of operation that could optimally meet the self-imposed institutional growth limitations while not sacrificing the quality of projectdesign and implementation that was making TUVA a successful organization. Thesolutions seemed to reside in the direction of transferring skills to an extended base oflocal staff --to reduce dependency in outside expertise-- while creating the smallest and

    most efficient infrastructure possible. Incentives and training for local personnel andgood information processing systems seemed the keys to the transfer of skills that

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    would made TUVA operate almost like a small and very efficient extension center. Bymid 1995 the assessment of the situation was completed and all that TUVA needed wasfinancial support to make the necessary investments for forming a small andpredominantly local staff equipped with the best information technology available.The planned objectives not only made financial sense but seemed also to correctlyfollow the principles of the foundations stated mission: to help building local

    institutions with the capacity to deal with conservation and development problems, andthus operate in synchrony with national conservation policy trends, which at the timewere pointing towards the decentralization of the Ministry of the Environment throughthe creation of the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) and the creation ofpartnerships for the management of natural resources with the private sector.

    The H.P. Kendall Foundation grant in June 1995 was highly instrumental in initiatingthe transition period and in making possible substantial progress towards these goals.As the results presented in this document will show, TUVAs investments in staff andinformation systems did pay off. They led to an increased capacity to capture resourcesfor all its main programs, and allowed to keep very low overhead costs in the midst ofthe added administrative complexity and more demanding levels of institutional

    relationships. More merit to it if we consider as is widely recognized-- that non-conventional conservation programs that incorporate participatory communitydevelopment are usually a more complex endeavor, and require more demanding levelsof financial and organizational management than conventional conservation measuresor cooperation agency ready-made intervention packages. In effect, by mid 1996,projects like the Osa Fallen Timber Extractive Reserves (OFTER), the Osa Sea TurtleStudy (OSTS) and the Rural Energy and Communications were running satisfactorilyand a new level of overall institutional capacity had been reached. A sign of the raisingof TUVAs public profile as a visible local NGO was the growing media coverage:several national newspapers and a main TV station, radio programs such as BBCsGlobal Concerns and a PBS broadcast, were all covering some of the projectsactivities, touting them as new and promising initiatives at work in the remote and oftenforgotten Osa Peninsula.

    1.2 Political challenges of people-oriented conservation

    At this point of the initial consolidation of TUVA as an influential NGO in the Osaswith an innovative program development agenda, it became increasingly clear to theorganization that the solution to the difficulties of community-based conservationstrategies for the Corcovado buffer-zones resided not so much in the local knowledgebase or in the popular technological ability to respond positively to the ecological andsocioeconomic challenges that resulted from the unanticipated creation of extensiveprotected areas, such as the Corcovado park itself or the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve.

    Indeed, the tools being developed to deal with the new conservation scenario were forthe most part working well, and the local users were reasonably content with theprospect of participating in the benefits that the management of conservation ofbiodiversity could bring. Moreover, trained in the bifocal vision that modernity hasbrought to traditional societies --by which social actors possess simultaneously thenear-sight of local reality and the far-sight of global processes-- these local userswere well aware of another problem. The question seemed to reside elsewhere andpresented a double face.

    On one hand it clearly pointed towards the challenges of building the financial andmanagement structures amongst local groups and entrepreneurs, necessary to increaseparticipation in the decision making process of natural resources management. In themidst of this quickly vanishing rural society, where, as said, the experience of locality isalready mediated by the pervasive global structures, building organizational capacity

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    seemed to be ingrained in the cultural, socioeconomic and political process of givingmeaning to spaces, thus transforming them into places. Places that, as organized socialand natural spaces, included the key elements of local identity formation and itsnecessary relationships with the national and transnational contexts.

    On the other hand, the problem seemed to rest ultimately in the realm of political

    economy: the emerging question was the viability of linking these emerging local powerstructures -- these new places created in the middle of protected areas-- with theexisting powerful political interests and in the framework of the ongoing process ofstructural adjustment of the national economy, with the resulting governmental policiesoften vacillating between the benefits and the sacrifices of decentralization and thenecessary shrinking of the state and its control over natural resources. At the center ofthis dilemma was the governmental agenda for rural capital investments and theunderlying received wisdom that perpetuated the stereotype of the rural poor as unablemanagers of the environment, therefore closing the political door to local organizationsdemanding increased participation in the management of natural resources. Not thatthese stereotypes were entirely imposed on the rural people. Rather they existedalready embedded in the local cultures, since the global circulation of capital had

    actively configured the experience of locality itself, rather than having imposed itselffrom the outside as a source of confinement and constraint.

    Invited to fill in the spaces that inevitably would need to become places-- thatdecentralization would bring, but at the same time uninvited because their arguable lackof skills, knowledge and table manners to properly make decisions regarding theprotection and use of natural resources, the local groups felt reasonably skeptical aboutthe entire process. As some successful pilot projects were showing in many cases, reallack of skill or technologies were not the limiting factors. A wealth of ethnobiologicalknowledge could be readily integrated into the management of biodiversityconservation. Zero-felling smallholder logging had evolved out of traditional localtechnologies and a sophisticated knowledge of forest dynamics. Managing young

    secondary forests for the desired supporting-tree species and for adequate shade controlhad made possible the enriching of patches with high-value commercial vanilla vines.Good data on sea turtle nesting behavior patterns had been gathered through dailymonitoring of 20 kilometers of beach with the help of local egg poachers, and hadresulted in a management program with reduction of nest predation rates by 70%.Rather, the argued limitations in skill and knowledge were interpreted by local people asconvenient labels used by existing political interests not to relinquish profitable controlover rich forests and valuable coastal zones.

    This skepticism amongst the local groups was only reinforced by long and deeplyrooted cultural expectations, pointing to the lack of examples of successful participationin the power battles for control over natural resources in Latin America. The local

    identity, formed in the historical process of defining otherness and strongly mediated bythe circulation of capital, was redefined, in yet another round, as the permanent politicallosers. There seemed to be no bridges. In the ephemeral committees that were formedby the government authorities in Osa to address the prescribed local participation, themeeting table was more like a decorated battle field, where indeed no one expected anynew outcomes and everyone walked out sensing the elusive and intangible distance ofthe other. By the time newly imported conflict-resolution tools were tried --like thestakeholder approach-- the local people had tasted all the customary refreshmentsoffered and did not respond anymore to the invitations.

    In the middle of this dilemma, TUVA felt that the case of the Osa Peninsula indeedextreme for it had seen almost 80% of its total land surface declared as protected areas

    in less than 5 years-- was only an example of an overall national trend. A case thatcertainly did open for TUVA challenging opportunities for action in an attempt to

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    break --in the Osas 1,000 km2 microcosm that seemed to reproduce all the conflicts ofthe greater tropical forest areas of the world-- this apparent gridlock whoseconsequences were a mine it and run attitude and the ensuing accelerated destructionof the environment and the life supporting systems of the local societies.

    The Osa is just a visible case, as is the case of Costa Rica amongst its South American

    neighbors: having placed near 30% of the country under protected areas, but neverhaving neither acknowledged nor compensated its social costs, this country faces todaythe challenge of socializing the benefits of three decades of conservation policy. It istrue that this formidable task has not been resolved anywhere in the world, and globalconservation policies have yet to strike a balance that works both for the environmentand the people. In Costa Rica however --almost a pilot country in this regard, as smallas West Virginia and where everything seems to be more at reach-- it seems that we canask for a little more progress: this nation, favored by geopolitical circumstances, hasreceived an enormous amount of direct economic help to conservation. Althoughthere is a lack of practice in non-conventional conservation -maybe for the politicalreasons described abovethis is not because there is a lack of ideas. There aredefinitely opportunities for action and Costa Rica, to some extent, owes it to the

    international community that has generously supported its conservation anddevelopment efforts. Otherwise it is possible that the presidential pledge for a newecological order that pictures the Costarican people as proud stewards of biodiversity abiodiversity that today is practically only benefiting a flourishing tourism industry andsome pharmaceutical companies-- will be a rhetoric ornament that will fail to convinceanyone peeking under the rug, where a picture of quick deterioration of the naturalresources and of the social fabric is coming more into focus.

    1.3 The future before us

    Because its experiences in finding new conservation tools, developed in the somewhatextreme conservationist scenario of the Osa, TUVA could probably contribute somelessons to the current policy-level discussion of new strategies for managing thenational natural resources, through a necessary and cost-effective decentralization andthe socialization of the benefits of conservation. For this, TUVA needs yet to takeanother step ahead and enter a new period of transition. In this final phase ofconsolidation, while maintaining the line of effective applied research, programdevelopment and solid results, TUVA needs to focus in the process of consummatingits major institutional relationships, so as to achieve a wider presence and a more activerole in shaping the future of the Osa. The Osa is indeed like a small tropicalmicrocosm, a laboratory where the complex chemical solutions of socioenvironmentalchange can be tested and refined. For our organization, the challenge consists inshifting some of its weight from what it does best practical research work and reliableproject implementation-- to the institutional arena and the quick sands of politics. Toaccomplish this change we need to engage in a process of organizational restructuring.The direction and substance of this restructuring is very much at the heart of thisdocument.

    If successful, TUVA could become an active partner of the government in its oftenvacillating plans to implement new and more efficient policies that work both for theenvironment and for the people. A central part of this strategy is the need to havestrong regional capacity installed and functioning, so decentralization plans can be fullyachieved and financial resources can be optimized and applied in more effective ways,contributing to the urgent linking of rural development with protected areamanagement. The government knows well that given demographic tendencies andgrowing social inequalities, creating protected areas becomes more difficult every day.But in the last decade we have seen an unprecedented international demand for naturereserves, as tropical forests continue disappearing at an alarming rate, posing disturbing

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    questions as what the impact will be for the future of the world. National Parks

    without people?, a recent publication of the IUCN points out that 85% of nationalparks in South America have human populations and addresses the issue of cooperationwith the traditional inhabitants of protected areas. The publications suggests that weurgently need more concrete experiences of this kind of successful cooperation if weare ever going to reform the system established in the 1940 Washington Convention,which is the basis of all current legislation on protected natural areas in Central andSouth America. After reviewing two dozen case studies in this continent, the studyconcludes:

    people are part of most national parks, and policies that ignore

    their presence are doomed to failure. On the other hand, recognizing

    the important contributions local people can make to national parks

    can be an important foundation in building new national cultures

    where conservation of biodiversity plays an important role. All of

    this argues for national parks as an important contribution to the

    well-being of people in South America. It suggests that careful

    consideration needs to be given to how national parks should be

    managed to bring benefits to local people, building on the knowledgeof indigenous people to ensure that biodiversity is conserved, that

    biological resources are managed in a sustainable manner, and that

    the benefits derived from protected areas are distributed in a fair an

    equitable manner. (Jeffrey A. McNeely, Chief Biodiversity Officer,

    The World Conservation Union, 1995).

    To restate the problem in this global context: after two decades of living off the capitalof its decided conservation policies that have placed almost 30% of the country underprotected-areas status, Costa Rica must now take on the task of socializing the benefitsof conservation into the rural populations and contribute some urgent lessons to itsneighboring nations. Is at this point that the tools developed by TUVA in its sevenyears of existence in the field of cooperative management of protected areas in the Osamay prove useful in building successful conservation partnerships. It is in this context

    that our own name, United Lands of Neighbors for the Environment acquires its fullmeaning: vicinal lands for the environment do point towards a new form of relationshipinside protected areas between man and nature, and between the local people and thegovernment as one more neighbor in the rural landscape.

    Looking back, the foundation has achieved quite a small feat: it has built itself fromzero to a visible and recognized presence in the complex conservation and developmentscenario of the Osa Peninsula, where conflictive and powerful interest have hemmed abrief but tumultuous history for decades. It is possible that TUVA has actuallymanaged to place itself in the right place, at the right time and with the right set of

    proven tools. It is also possible that the Costarican government is going to need goodvicinal partners to implement its new policies for the next decade. To capitalize on thisopportunity and enter the new phase of growth that could make TUVA a real playerand a leading presence in the decisions regarding the future of the Osa and its peoplewill certainly be like a dream come true.

    But lets not forget that, even in the case that the unpredictable twists of history takeplace and TUVA remains what it is today, a small and maybe idealistic organization,the foundation has already made some substantial progress in breathing new life intoCorcovados future by helping to secure large tracts of critical habitats along animportant ecological corridor in the Rio Piro Valley --now as the largest nationalwildlife refuge in the country-- while, at the same time, contributing to improve the

    quality of life and the options of the local communities living in these forests throughadded economic opportunities, new schools for education, alternative energy sources,improved communications and better health.

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    FINAL REPORT Area of influence: Corcovado Buffer Zones

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    2 Area of influence: Corcovados buffer-zones

    2.1 Landscape and society in the southeastern buffer-zone

    The buffer-zone at the southeast sector of Corcovado National Park (SBZ), where TUVA hasconcentrated most of its program development work and land protection initiatives, comprisesapproximately an area of 125 Km2 (48 square miles). The main feature of this sector is the 12-mile long ecological corridor connecting the largely undisturbed rich forests of Piro withCorcovado National Park. This geographical corridor of abrupt topography is formed by anarrow strip of tropical lowland wet forests (up to 400 meters over sea level) that runs along thePacific-side slopes of the Peninsula the Osas main watershed divide. It is estimated that anuninterrupted tract of approximately 3,500 hectares conform this corridor, which is utilized bywildlife coming in and out of Corcovado during seasonal migrations. Rapid ecologicalassessment studies have also shown that the Rio Piro corridor contains unique vegetationassociations not represented in the park and therefore in need of protection.

    ZANorestePblancas.shpCorcovado.shp

    UsoBosqueManglarOtrosParq. NacionalPastoUsoAgricola

    Osapob

    N

    EW

    S

    Corcovado and Land Use in the Southeastern Buffer Zone

    Figure 1 : Land use in Corcovado's Southeast Buffer-zone (SBZ)

    Land use HA Km2 % ofSBZ

    Hab/km2

    Forest 11,737 117 54% 3.4

    Pasture 7,729 77 35% 5.1

    Agriculture 2,425 24 11% 16.6

    Total 21,891 218 100% 1.83

    Table 1: Land use and relative population density in the SBZ

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    The forest takes up a little over 54% of the total land surface of the SBZ and in general occupiessteep interfluvial terraces and slopes. It falls for the most part in the category of tropical very wetforest in the Holridge system of classification, with an annual precipitation between 4,800 mm.and up 6,500 mm. and mean annual temperatures between 24 and 28 degrees Celsius. Theaverage altitude of the many rounded and softly carpeted hills along the ridge that in a Southeast-Northwest direction forms the watershed divide of the Osa Peninsula oscillates between 300 and

    450 meters, with the highest peak reaching 743 meters above sea level.

    The potential production capacity of the Osas forests is the highest in the country and isestimated in approximately 186 cubic meters per hectare. Tree species diversity is also very high,with more than 150 different species per hectare. Species distribution is highly irregular andresponds to a wide variety of microclimatic associations and diverse edaphic conditions.

    Although officially all forest land on the southeastern buffer-zone falls inside the Golfo DulceForest Reserve (declared in 1979, 4 years after the formation of Corcovado), all landholdings

    here are considered de facto as private. The limitations of titling property imposed by the forestreserve have been slowly eroding. In 1989, only 10% of landowners inside the reserve hadproperty titles. By 1997 it is estimated that as much as 70% of the land holders either havealready titles or are have filed for one. From a land tenure perspective, the forests of theSoutheastern buffer-zone are a homogenous mosaic of privately owned patches, totalingapproximately between 4,000 and 5,000 hectares of little intervened primary forest. Smallholderstypically tend to keep 50% of their land as forest, the rest being dedicated to permanent pasture,agricultural land in different stages of the production cycle or fallow land in any of its manystages of regeneration that lead to a new forest or to a new agricultural cycle. The size of theforest patches that form --like in a irregular puzzle-- the corridor ranges between 10 Ha. and 250Ha., the average size being probably between 50 Ha. and 80 Ha.

    Agricultural land in the SBZ occupies the smallest amount of total land with 11% (2,425 Ha.).Several large rice farms between 200 and 300 Ha each dominate the agricultural landscape,located invariably on the flat and fertile lowland belt that extends along the coastal line betweenCabo Matapalo and Quebrada Leona, especially around the Pejeperro and Pejeperrito salt waterlagoons. Besides these large rice farms, that in total may occupy between 1,000 and 1,500hectares each year, smallholders in the SBZ usually dedicate around 20% of their land forsubsistence horticulture (plantains, manioc, peanuts, sweet potato, calabash) or small-scalecommercial grain agriculture. The more common grains planted are several varieties of beansand corn and upland rice. Total surface of smallholder agricultural land in the SBZ varies everyyear, depending on the help available for planting and harvesting, but it can be estimated roughlyin between 800 and 1,200 hectares. This amount is steadily decreasing as new land-useregulations limit access to new forest or old fallow lands, thus limiting smallholder commercialgrain production

    Pastureland is, together with the forest, the dominating feature of the landscape of the SBZ,occupying 35% of the total land (7,729 Ha.). Pastureland extensively occupies also the narrowflat belt along the coastal zone and is distributed mainly amongst 4 or 5 large cattle ranches,averaging between 600 and 1,000 hectares each. The rest -- approximately 2,000 Ha.-- is dividedin many medium or small holdings, with extensions from 20 to 60 Ha. as average dedicatedpermanently to pasture land. However the decrease in governmental subsidies to cattle hasvisibly impacted many of these small holdings and more pasture area each year is invaded byweeds and degraded vegetation. However the distribution of pasture land reflects the structureof these subsidies that have favored for the most part large, capital intensive operations: 14% ofthe total number of cattle-ranch owners control almost 60% of the total land under pasture. Thisis illustrated in the following table:

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    Area # owners Approx. Ha. % land % owners

    400 to 1,000 5 5,200 60% 14%

    100 to 400 20 2,000 23% 57%

    20 to 100 10 1,729 18% 29%

    Total 35 8,729 100% 100%

    Table 2: Pasture land distribution in SBZ

    The population of the SBZ fluctuates between 350 and 400 inhabitants residing permanently inthe southeastern buffer-zone, distributed in 6 main small community centers. Thesecommunities traditionally presented a settlement pattern consisting of hamlets and clusters ofscattered households connected through a network of foot and horse paths (all terrain vehicledirt roads in some cases). The national road connecting Puerto Jimnez with the southernborder of the park in Carate, forms the east-west main axis along which the SBZ communitiesare distributed, north of this axis towards the forest slopes and south towards the coastal plains.

    Community Households Schools Number of people

    Rio Oro 24 1 87

    Carate 4 16

    Piro 12 1 72

    La Balsa 10 1 56

    Rio Nuevo 18 1 76

    Carbonera 16 1 64

    TOTAL 84 5 371

    Table 3 : Population distribution in the SBZ

    The most important of these communities has been traditionally Rio Oro (Golden River), animportant gold miner base camp between 1940 and 1970. From there, gold miners would

    venture into their high forest camps, champas, following upstream the many creeks leading toCorcovado National Park. Active trade networks had their center here for almost three decadesand even dirt land strip was built to facilitate commerce. However, the Rio Oro area isexperimenting slow but steady decline in its population as the result of the sinking returns of goldmining in the rivers flowing out of Corcovado, and the increased controls that now makedifficult for gold miners to enter the park through the southern border. Conversely in the pastfive years the community of Rio Piro, an older community who was created by Chiricano settlersin the 1850, has experimented some growth, as a direct result of TUVAs program developmentactivities that have helped creating jobs in this area, especially in the sector of smallholderproduction forestry.

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    Corcovado.shpOsapob

    ObjectivesTuva MgmtOtherLogging.shpPorios.shp

    N

    EW

    S

    Land Tenure in Corcovado Southeastern Buffer Zone

    Figure 2 : Land tenure in the SBZ

    2.2 Landscape and society in the northeastern buffer-zone

    Although TUVAs focus has been primarily on the Southeastern buffer zone, since 1992 theorganization has been in contact with the communities of the Northwestern buffer-zone, inparticular with the Guaym Indigenous Reserve. Although some small initiatives were developed

    with these groups in 1992, program development activities have been carried on more intenselysince 1995, when a zero-felling forest management unit was inaugurated with the financialsupport of the United Nations Development Program.

    The biophysical characteristics of the landscape in the Guaym Indigenous Reserve are verysimilar to those describe for the Southeastern buffer zone, so we will not described them here inlength. With an extension of near 3,000 hectares, the reserve borders the southwestern boundaryof Corcovado National Park. A thick carpet of tropical very wet forests cover more than 80%of the reserve territory officially recognized by presidential decree in 1985. With an abrupttopography and an abundance of water streams, the average height of the hills almost reachesthe altitude of a cloud forest: 600 meters above sea level.

    The Guaym are the poorest people in the country, and until recently there were almost nodevelopment initiatives taking place in their territories. Partially this is a consequence of theirlegal status: the Guaym were not accepted as equal-rights Costarican national citizens by theCongress until 1993. Totaling approximately 2,700 people, the Guaym of Costa Rica representonly the 1.8% of the total population of the counties occupying the southern Pacific region ofCosta Rica. They control 23,603 hectares of land, which represent 3.1% of the total landoccupied by all these counties.

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    Name Km2

    Population # families Hab/km2

    StatusCoto Brus 75,0 826 75 11,0 ReserveConte Burica 119,1 1.350 270 11,3 Reserve

    Osa 27,1 120 23 1.28 ReserveAbrojosMontezuma

    14,8 330 66 22,3 Reserve

    Altos deSan Antonio

    0,8 104 21 130 None

    Total 236,8 2.730 444 11.22 -

    Table 4: Guaym territories in Costa Rica

    The Guaym of Osa migrated to the Osa from the other side of Golfo Dulce in the early 1970s,although their traditions speak about their current home in the Osa as part of their ancestralterritories. They still migrate annually to visit and work with their relatives in the larger CotoBrus and Conte Burica Guaym communities and to transact wage work with the coffee

    companies during the annual harvest in December. During the rest of the year they can beconsidered hunter-gatherer horticulturalists.

    Age category Man Women Total0 a 5 18 11 296 a 15 13 8 2115 a 25 26 14 4025 a 40 12 8 2040 a 55 6 3 955 and more 1 1Total 76 44 120

    Table 5: The Guaymi population of Osa

    Access to the reserve is difficult by means of a 2 hour foot trail that leads directly to the school,built recently around an open space that serves also as a community meeting plaza. Twenty three

    families live in dispersed thatch roofed ranchos, usually near a stream. These households are, asan average, 2 or 3 km. away from each other and connected between them through narrowfootpaths cut through the forest. Typically about 68% of the land around the house that iscontrolled by each family is kept under primary forest cover, while 16% is land in different fallowstages , 9% is dedicated to pasture and 7% is used for agriculture.

    Main sources of income Percentage of totalWages in la Palma 17%

    Wages in Cerro de Oro 20%Sale of pigs, chickens 12%Sales of cattle products (meat, milk) 10%Sale of agricultural products (beans, corn) 27%Sales of timber 14%

    Table 6: Sources of income for the Guaymi of Osa

    Until now, forest management was reduced to the collection of non-timber products forconstruction materials, fruits, medicine and the marginal sale of valuable hardwoods to loggersand middlemen. With the inauguration of an officially recognized forest management unit in1996, it is expected that zero-felling commercial natural forest management can add a significantsource of income to the Guaym economy and contribute to a decrease in wage labor outside ofthe reserve and overall improvement of the quality of life for these families.

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    3 Phase I: Beginnings and early development (1990-95)

    3.1 Overview

    The preliminary period between 1990 and 1992 was dedicated to assess the natural and socio-economic conditions of the southeastern buffer-zone, as well as the needs and opportunities forintegrated conservation and rural development work. After TUVAs official inauguration in1992, the first four years had their focus in protecting the land base from existing logging threatsand in program development activities in the Rio Piro valley, at the core of the 12 mile-longecological corridor connecting the southeastern boundary of Corcovado National Park with theforests at the tip of the Osa Peninsula.

    At the center of the first pilot projects were the consolidation of local community relations withthree principal groups residing in the buffer-zone of Corcovado: the Rio Piro valley group with40 people, the Rio Oro group, with 80 people residing around the Rio Oro sector and the

    Guaym group of 120 indigenous people living at the Alto Laguna Indigenous Reserve, on thenorthern boundary of Corcovado. In total, about fifty families and 240 people formed the corepopulation that could be defined as user of TUVAs earlyinitiatives.

    3.2 Project opportunities

    The relative good condition of the resource base in the SBZ, with large tracts of forest extendingall the way down from the central ridge towards to the rich volcanic sand beaches, together withthe socio-economic characteristics of the local population and their manifested interest to act onbehalf of the protection of their forest and shores willing to make conservation an instrument

    for the improvement of their livelihoods-- defined the opportunities for starting small pilotprojects in the areas of agriculture, forestry and coastal resource management. The main goalwas to protect the rich resource base of the forests and the beaches and build economicalternatives for the buffer-zone communities, whose transforming subsistence economies,struggling in the midst of the new cash economy, lacked in many cases the basic schooling, healthor communications facilities.

    The limitations to local economic development were several: on one hand conservationregulations for the new protected areas had limited access to traditional resources (forestgathering, hunting, fishing, mining) and no compensation measures had been taken bythegovernment as promised; on the other hand the presence of capital intensive operations (mainlyloggers and land developers) that were be able to circumvent the conservation regulations,

    circumscribed also local access to markets and opportunities.

    In the forestland, indiscriminate clear-cut logging by a Cuban-owned company --that in fact actedas a timber cartel in the areawas slowly encroaching in the properties of smallholders. Bycutting fast and dirty deals, and promising lucrative benefits that never arrived, this company waspurchasing the best timberlands from owners and extracting all valuable hardwoods, devastatingthe forests and damaging the dirt roads used for access. Local owners often were not paid for thetimber extracted in their properties and, when paid, it was at the prices and conditions set by thecompany. The situation was worsening day after day, with the logging company becoming moreentrenched in the valley and threatening to control all the land. A dead-end economic street.

    This situation prompted some local residents to ask TUVA for help. As a response, TUVA

    helped raising funds to rescue the lands in danger of being logged and initiated a communityoriented forest management project. An overall action-research strategy was used to define the

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    scope of the project, establishing from the beginning that further research activity would belimited to practical needs and conducted in conjunction with the local groups, giving a principalrole to local knowledge and the existing skills and technologies. TUVA agreed to negotiate accessfor the community to the lands purchased from the Cuban company. Participatory managementand assessment methods were utilized all along to redefine as often as necessary these needs andto reset the overall goals of these first resource management (RM) projects.

    In the coastal zone, developers were increasingly gaining access to all the concessions in themaritime zone the 200 meters of public access that extend inland from the high tide line inorder to parcel, develop and sell the land to foreign tourism entrepreneurs or second homeowners. Since this area had been traditionally occupied by local families, conflicts over thevaluable beach lands were in occasions violent and involved the presence of armed rural guards.Since these beaches were important nesting habitats for four species of sea turtles, the Rio Orocommunity requested TUVAs help to start an initiative that will help protect these beaches fromirrational development, while allowing the local groups to participate in the management ofcoastal resources through rural tourism and conservation-oriented project development.

    By the end of this early phase, the threats to the forests of Piro had for the most part disappeared

    and a local economy that integrated new forestry production options into the traditionalsubsistence activities was taking shape. Data on turtle nesting on the Rio Oro beaches, gatheredby local people trained by a TUVA researcher, prompted the government to intervene in theconflict of the beaches on behalf of the sea turtles. Overall, local ethnobiological knowledge wasalready showing its potential as a tool for the management of conservation of biological diversity.TUVA had managed to become part of stable and productive community relations, and vicinalties were being revived around new economic alternatives. Several pilot projects were runningsatisfactorily and offered an example of a small but functioning model of ecosystem-basedparticipatory management in the buffer-zone around Corcovado. Perhaps still far from resolvingthe gridlock of distrust, hostility and discouragement that grabbed the Osa, but certainly TUVAhad initiated a new direction and was seeing some promising results. The following sectionsdescribe in more detail the pilot projects initiated in the areas of agriculture, forestry and coastal

    management, starting with a brief description of TUVAs own organizational process during itsfirst four years of existence, that is between 1992 and 1995.

    3.3 Organization and staff

    During its preliminary years between 1990 and 1992, TUVA did not have an office, staff or anykind of infrastructure established in the Osa. Funding was limited to scarce personal resourcesand occasional in-kind contributions. The director of a well established local project,BOSCOSA, for example, had made possible access to a fax machine in their office in Jimnez,located in a tiny room in the back of the public telephone room. Some local families in Pirooffered also their houses and warm hospitality. A personal old Land Rover was used fortransportation and a company called Tropical Reforestations S.A. was organized to facilitatesome of the organizational aspects of the research and assessment work, serving as a corporatestructure to develop initial institutional contacts and facilitate relations with governmental offices.

    The rancho a traditional Chiricano construction built on posts and with a thatch roofofMiguel Sanchez in the Piro River was the central base of operations for coordinating all dailywork. Jeronimo Ortega , an old gold miner of Misquito origin, was the main informant, fieldassistant and companion for Manuel Alonso, who was at the time the only person representingTUVA. A basic solar system was later on installed in Piro to power a portable computer and aprinter, making possible to install some basic office facilities to support ongoing project designand development.

    After the summer of 1992, with promising results coming out of this preliminary work and withthe official inauguration of the foundation, the situation improved significantly: with the arrivalof the first grants, a more spacious house was rented in Puerto Jimnez --with a fax and phone

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    line-- and a secretary was hired to assist Manuel Alonso, which became TUVAs director. MiguelSanchez also joined the staff and became the coordinator of the field projects, his house acting as

    a de facto extension center where other community members would come to learn about theprojects and in search of work opportunities. Two additional solar energy systems were installedin local houses along the ecological corridor, making possible a radio-telephone network thatgreatly facilitated the communications between TUVA and the local groups participating in theprojects.

    3.4 Initial neighborhood alliances

    As a central part of the initial and often bustling project activity that followed TUVAs officialinauguration, and under the guiding principle of the foundations mission of promoting theexisting vicinal ties that were at the base of the local social and economic organization of thebuffer-zone communities, the neighborhood alliances that had given TUVA its name were beingslowly forged. These community alliances started with the Sanchez family, and in particularwith Miguel Sanchez, a native land-owner of the Rio Piro valley and great-grand-son of one ofthe original Colombian-Panamanian settlers in Piro.

    These mestizo settlers known as Chiricanos, have their cultural roots in the black and indigenouspopulations of the Colombian Choc who migrated north escaping from the bloody civil turmoilthat followed the independence wars. Sailing past the Darin and temporarily settling in theChiriqu province of northern Panama, they slowly started moving north to the Osa Peninsula,whose familiar landscape of dense forests and rocky shores reminded them of the ColombianChoc . In 1848 they founded the town of Puerto Jimnez (then Santo Domingo), under thesupremacy of Juan Mercedes Fernandez, a great Chiricano leader. By 1885 Jimnez had attracted200 Chiricanos and was an active economic center offering the promise of an unspoiled andscarcely inhabited land.

    Some small kin groups of Chiricanos left Jimnez and ventured further north towards the greatforests of Corcovado, where they probably encountered the sparse indigenous populations thathave been documented archaeologically around the Golfo Dulce basin, but of which we lack anydirect ethnohistorical references. Miguel Sanchez was one of 17 brothers born in Rio Piro fromhis father, Don Fidencio Sanchez one of those Chiricano pioneers of the Osas wild lands, a manwidely admired in the entire region for his great skill, physical strength and knowledge of theforest, all indispensable qualities to pioneer together with his many brothers-- the firstsettlements that practically encompassed most of what is today the southeastern buffer-zone.

    It will be from this initial alliance with the influential Sanchez family that other communityrelationships eventually grew, opening the way for many of the initiatives undertaken by TUVAover the years. In 1993, don Fidencio Sanchez his wife very sickdecided to move to PuertoJimnez and leave part of his land to his son Miguel. He insistently asked TUVA to help findingfunds to purchase the rest, to avoid having to sell to a US developer who planed to parcel theproperty and build a beach hotel-- that was offering him a small fortune but imposing a painfulcondition for the sale: that his son Miguel, who wanted to stay and continue the legacy of hisfather in Piro, had to leave with all the others. TUVA managed to find some people interested inhelping don Fidencio and the Rio Piro cause. Today, his old house has been renovated to hostthe Piro Biodiversity Center and Miguel, following the steps of his father, has become arespected central figure of the Piro River community.

    During 1992 the contacts with the Guaym indigenous people were also started, seeking to forgeanother vicinal alliance. A brief description of this group was presented in the previous section.The initial contact was actually established with the help of don Fidencio Sanchez, himself a

    good friend for many years of the well known Guaymsukia (shaman) Lorenzo Palacios. In

    fact, the Chiricanos of Piro had maintained from the very beginning trade relationships with theGuaym of Alto Laguna, and had even become kinsman, through marriages between the Sanchezand the Palacios families.

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    From this original contact, TUVA did maintain a continuous working relationship with theGuaym over the years. This relationship eventually lead to the creation of the Guaym of AltoLaguna Development Association and facilitated negotiations with the National Federation ofIndigenous Peoples (CONAI) for the defense of the Guaym territories of the Osa, under heavypressure by colonists between 1970 and 1990. Even today the reserve suffers colonist invasionssearching for land and timber. As we will see, the installation of solar energy systems and radio

    communications in the Guaym reserve through TUVAs rural energy program has helped verysignificantly in protecting their homeland and in starting other projects.

    3.5 Agroecology applied research

    The first integrated applied research effort was written as the VERDEA Project (1990-1992). Itsfocus was on identification, analysis and recovery of traditional vegetation resource-managementstrategies and its application in auto-help projects that could improve local communitieseconomic situation. Research data soon confirmed the many similarities that existed betweenthe local cultures (Chiricano and Guaym) and the well-documented cultures of the northwesternAmazon in terms of its adaptive strategies to the rain forest environment. This confirmed thatthe environmental history of the Osa is in effect closely linked to the cultural influences of SouthAmerica (northwestern Ecuador and Colombia) and that it shows little relation to the moreculturally distant Mesoamerican influences that penetrated strongly into the northern part ofCosta Rica (Guanacaste, Central Valley). An important consequence of this was that it madepossible to illustrate traditional resource-management practices in Osa using as a reference theabundant research literature available for the northwestern Amazonian world.

    VERDEA applied research emphasized three main components: (1) identification and recovery

    of indigenous agroecological systems, (2) characterization and strategies for in-situ conservationand (3) applied use and management of vegetation resources. The main goal was to identify,validate and upgrade when needed-- the existing Guaym and Chiricano resource managementstrategies and launch small pilot projects. The first concrete outcome of the VERDEA action-research initiative --conducted with the technical cooperation of the Agronomy School of theUniversity of Madrid and the Anthropology Department of the National Museum of Costa Rica-- was the Community Agroforestry Program (CAP). Initially, this project focused on subsidizingtraditional practices in the management of successional agroecosystems and secondary forests(known locally as charrales and tacotales). Practical applications were designed aroundexperimental agroecosystems, mainly multiple-use milpas the corn-bean-rice initiated fields thatcontinue to be managed productively during long fallow periods. Through farmer initiatives,

    vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) and pejibaye palm ( Bactris gasipaes,peach palm) were selected tocreate managed successional fields by enriching abandoned fallows both in Rio Piro and inAlto Laguna. The CAP project, financed with the first grant ever given to TUVA by GEO(Germany) in the spring of 1992, eventually would lead to the organization of a local Vanilla

    Producers Cooperative in 1993 with 13 members cultivating more than a total 8 hectares of thisorchid. Total area cultivated was distributed in many dispersed small plots ranging from 0.5. to 2hectares and with an annual combined production of 2,000 Kg. (4,500 pounds of green vanilla)by early 1994.

    3.6 Natural forest management

    At the same time the VERDEA research initiativeconcerned with the destructive activities ofthe logging companies described earlier-- was trying to identify opportunities for starting naturalforest management. To this end, some initial research on the local uses of the forest and onbasic forest dynamics was launched, in order to ascertain the productive potential of local forests

    and to gather some initial data on the biological diversity in the Piro River valley. In 1991, withthe in-kind support of members of a Canadian organization (Western Canada Wilderness

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    Committee) and some limited private funding, a system of canopy platforms was built on threedifferent locations of the Rio Piro forests. For some years observations on forest dynamics andnatural history were carried from these platforms, which also served to attract the local curiosityin the direction of the potential value of applied research of local forest ecosystems. As time willshow, the observations carried from these platforms of the phenomenon of the formation offorest ligth-gaps, will eventually leads to the key discussion of the possibilities of its economic

    use. The common goal of these discussions between TUVA researchers and the local peoplewas to find ways to end the myth of the unmanageable rain forest by showing that a productiverelationship with it could be established without endangering its biological diversity.

    As a result of all these investigations, some promising local technologies were identified, showingthat the Chiricanos in contrast with the colonists from Guanacaste and Nicaragua more versedin cattle and agriculture-- possessed a wealth of skill and experience in low-impact loggingpractices, as well as an intimate knowledge of the forest. Don Fidencio Sanchez himself hadsuccessfully managed several hundred hectares and an artisanal sawmill had operated in his houselong before the first chain saw arrived to Osa in 1972. However, the new protected arearegulations in 1979 that created the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve, had pushed to a marginalsituation these local logging operations, even though local groups had openly expressed their

    concern for the future of the forests and the way they were being misused in a precipitatedmanner by unscrupulous middlemen and loggers that had managed to bypass these regulations.

    Although some local smallholders usually had the knowledge and the skills to work inrudimentary forest production, the lack of financial resources required to obtain the newnecessary permits and hire a professional forester to elaborate the required management planlimited the natural continuation of this old productive activity. Also the widespread idea of theunmanageable rain forest because its fragility and complexity combined with the labeling ofsmallholders as illiterate slash and burn destroyers limited their attempts to get recognition.Indeed, after the declaration of the park and the forest reserve in the 1970, these local timberproducers were technically outlawed and thus were forced to deal mainly with the middlemen ofthe loggers, which usually also operated illegally but had the financial resources and the political

    contacts to circumvent the permits. The end result was that some local producers that had fordecades carefully managed their forests were now thrown out of business. For little financialreward they were working for the loggers as guides --to facilitate their access to virgin foreststands filled with highly valued species-- and by providing traditional technological skills (treefelling, blocking, manual milling work, animal extraction, etc.).

    After identifying the interest of the local producers to continue managing their own forests andvalidating the wealth of forest management skills present, a process of upgrade of the oldtechnologies started. Slowly the same loose organizational structure that was used to run theCommunity Agroforestry Project started shifting its weight towards regaining a recognized rolefore the local people in the sector of artisanal timber production. TUVA served as a facilitator inthis process and helped in finding the necessary subsidies for upgrading the equipment, and in

    circumventing the many bureaucratic and legal hurdles of small holder forestry.

    It was soon determined that there was no actual precedent in the country for organizedsmallholder timber production and that there were many obstacles to be faced at the legislationand policy level. The often-disputed forestry legislation had not been passed with thesmallholders in mind or seemed to care much about the efficient use of a renewable resource thatwas being treated more like a mine. Favoring a few dozen of timber barons, the law had helpedin forming a highly inefficient and extremely wasteful forest industry. Recent estimates suggestthat more than 60% of the raw matter never reached the outdated mills in the capital city, and ofthe remaining 40% that was ever processed, another 35% was wasted, never reaching theconsumers. The industry had grown accustomed to a generous treatment of governmentsubsidies, virtual free access to virgin forests and the cheap labor provided by highly skilled local

    workers that happened to be the actual owners of the land an the trees.

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    Although the constraints and limitations were many, this pioneering work in community forestrybetween 1992 and 1994 was to yield good results: slowly following the rhythm of the localinterests and capabilities, the ground was being set for the full implementation of a systematicand organized economic small enterprise that eventually will be called the Osa Fallen TimberExtractive Reserves (OFTER). By mid 1997, several producer groups were engaged in zerofelling artisanal timber production covering (and protecting) near 1,000 hectares of forest in three

    management units around Corcovados buffer-zones. This form of natural forest managementhas been certified as and ecologically and socially sound system of production by the worldwideForest Stewardship Council (FSC - Consejo Mundial de los Bosques). The producers have soldmore than 80,000 board feet (near 300 cubic meters) of high quality tropical hardwoods with amarket value of near than $40,000 without cutting a single tree. In 1992, under the system of themiddlemen and the outsider loggers, the same amount of wood would have representedprobably no more that $2,500 in income for these same producers.

    3.7 Tree farming

    Part of the lands that were purchased from the Cuban logging company were managed under areforestation plan subsidized by the government and covering 350 hectares. Near 700,000 trees

    of teak (Tectona grandis) and spiny cedar ( Bombacopsis quinatum ) had been planted by thecompany, but after the subsidies were received they had been abandoned, to save the highmanagement costs. As a result, these exotic species needing continued care because their lack ofnatural adaptations to the local edaphic and climatic conditions were collapsing and could notcompete successful with the surrounding vegetation that grew many times faster, choking anddeforming the seedlings that were looking for light and space in this alien environment.

    This reforestation project --one of the many several hundreds like it that were financed in thecountry between 1980 and 1990-- offered a payment of $300 per hectare planted, and hadattracted to the activity of reforestation many business people that had no experience withforestry and whose motivation was not in the trees but in the money. The exotic tree speciesrecommended by the foresters in charge of these projects often also responded to need to sell theexisting stocks in the nurseries and not to the characteristics of the area where they were to beplanted. Consequently, more than 70% of the reforestation projects in the country were in alamentable condition and a large amount of the public funds had been used to enrich alreadywealthy companies with no actual increase in the reforested area.

    When TUVA took over this reforestation project in 1992 two things were immediately done: firstlocal groups were invited to discuss the situation and agree on a plan, and second a researchagreement was signed with the Forestry Institute of the Universidad Nacional in Heredia(INISEFOR) to promote native species and help develop a participatory management plan.After these initial changes, the Forestry Department (DGF) was invited to discuss the possiblerescue of the project by channeling the remaining incentives to the local groups, phasing outfurther investments in managing the failing teak and spiny cedar areas and starting to plant nativespecies. Local experts were hired to gather seedlings in the surrounding forests and create a

    nursery with promising native species such as golden oak (Terminalia amazonia) and sura

    (Terminalia combretensis). After a long negotiation with the DGF, official approval was finally

    obtained to use the public funds to plant 5 hectares of golden oak and sura in a degraded area offailing spiny cedar where natural successional vegetation had taken over. Contrary to theconventional practices required by the DGF technicians that called for impeccable and timeconsuming-- cleaning of the area to be planted, local experts recommended imitating the naturalhabitat for these species, that were known to compete well with the surrounding tall vegetation,and the plot was left on its own after it was planted.

    One year after the planting of this demonstration unit, the golden oak trees had grown at an

    impressive rate and were emerging healthily over the competing grasses and shrubs, more thandoubling the size of the five-year old original spiny cedars. Management costs had been reduced

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    dramatically and the all the funds had been redirected to create local employment on the treeplantation, now being managed jointly by local residents and the surprised DGF technicians.

    However, these promising changes had been introduced too late and the incentives that wouldhave allowed continuation of this work expired soon. Financial difficulties and disagreementswith the owners of the plantation caused TUVAs management to resign in 1995, after three

    years of promising results that had changed the face of the project. As a result, the tree farmsuffered a new period of abandonment. But the role of the local people as a source of expertiseand labor has for the most part been maintained and today the tree farm continues to bemanaged with their participation as an integral part of the economy of the ecological corridor.The inclusion of this property which includes the headwaters of the Rio Piro and Coyundainthe Osa National Wildlife Refuge will probably reopen the door for new management agreementsand continued socio-environmental initiatives.

    3.8 Coastal resources protection and management

    During the same initial years between 1990 and 1992, the participatory diagnostic assessmentscarried in the buffer zone had shown that local communities had a growing concern for thesituation of the coastal areas and the ongoing process of displacement of the local people in favorof land developers and the tourism industry. The Costarican law determines that the first 200meters of the coastal strip from the high-tide line are to be considered state property andtherefore public. This coastal belt is managed by the municipal governments under a special setof regulations contained in the Law of the Terrestrial-Maritime Zone. Local spokesmen arguedthat municipal corruption was fueling fast and rampant speculation and that illegal occupation ofthe maritime zone was taking place, in detriment of the local interests.

    Environmental history research carried by TUVA had shown that traditionally the localcommunities had been utilizing the coastal resources --open ocean beaches, mangroves, estuaries,salt-water lagoons, inundated forests and coastal swamps-- for fishing, turtle egg collection,

    coconut (Cocos nucifera) collection for copra, salting the cattle and recreation. Also for manyyears before the construction of the national road to Carate --the last population center at thefoot of southern boundary of the park the beach zone was used as an essential way of foot andhorse transportation connecting the many dispersed households with the central town of PuertoJimenez. A complex circuit of traditional rights of way (legal easements) connecting the beachwith a network of access paths was now being locked-out. Placed on top of the newconservation regulations Corcovado and the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve-- that were nowlimiting access to most forest resources, these new transportation restrictions and the loss ofaccess to important fishing resources was causing growing feelings of hostility amongst long-timeresidents.

    The local people resented being seen as destroyers of the turtles, an argument they saw as anunjust form of stereotyping used against them by the developing and tourist interests to justifytheir take-over of the beaches. Instead, local residents actually showed interest in participating innew management opportunities for the use and protection of the coastal resources. Utilizing theexcellent local knowledge on turtle nesting behavior and population dynamics, a study of fourspecies of endangered marine turtles was launched with limited funding and the collaboration ofsome highly motivated entrepreneurs of the Rio Oro community. An intern researcher from aUS university helped with training local monitors in data collection and analysis methods. Thedata collected daily by the local monitors during an entire year soon proved that the local use ofturtle eggs was not a major factor in the endangering of the resource, and that controlling straydog nest predation could contribute to the improving of nesting success. The study alsosuggested that negative impacts to the turtles could come instead from uncontrolled beachoccupancy by the hotels and clusters of residences being planned by developers. Taking exampleof other successful community initiatives in managing turtle nesting beaches (Ostional andGandoca-Manzanillo), a small program called Osa Sea Turtle Study (OSTS) was officially started

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    in early 1993 with the participation of the Rio Oro community. In 1994 the program receivedthe endorsement of the Ministry of Education who visited the Rio Oro school and granted asmall fund for a turtle education campaign aimed at the local children.

    As in the case of the forestry work, the Osa Sea Turtle Study would eventually evolve into alarger community initiative that finally became fully organized in 1995 as the Association of

    Conservation and Development of Rio Oro (ADECORO). With the assistance of TUVA,ADECORO obtained additional financial support from the Spanish Cooperation Agency(SECIPI), Friends of the Earth and the Chelonia Institute, amongst others. As of today, TUVAcontinues providing technical assistance to ADECORO which has filed for the establishment ofa national turtle wildlife refuge, that if approved, will be a unique model of a co-managedprotected area.

    3.9 Rural Energy and Communications

    As it has been described in passing in the previous sections, TUVAs overall research-action andparticipatory program-development strategy took into account from the very beginning threemajor factors: (1) the need to incorporate the interests of the local groups when facilitating thepromotion of small enterprises, (2) the need to invest research resources only to resolve specificproblems and to address existing social needs and (3) the need for external support for creatingthe conditions that would facilitate the initiating and sustaining of pilot projects in an area that,still in 1990, was considered remote for many Costarican citizens. In other words, the projectsfinally selected for implementation under TUVAs active influence would eventually serve to helpthe user groups to bring about permanent changes in their situation on their own initiative andthrough their own efforts. One of the most important gaps to achieve this goal was the lack ofinformation sources for the local residents to become aware of their situation and to share it withothers, as well as for eliminating middlemen and improving access to various resources andmarkets. Another expressed limitation was the lack of electricity that made use of television verydifficult. Customarily families that had bought small black and white TV sets had to travel longdistances by foot carrying heavy car batteries to town for recharging. Once recharged theyprovided energy for 6-7 hours of power, before they had to be recharged again.

    If we consider that the traditionally isolated Osa Peninsulas main population centers (La Palma,Jimenez) were accessible only by foot and horse up to the 1970 and that even all terrain 4WDvehicles encountered insurmountable obstacles until the rainy season of 1995 when some metalbridges were built, it would be easier to understand that the internal transportation andcommunication systems had been traditionally extremely difficult. Internal transportationbetween the dispersed communities was and still is in many areas-- done by horse or foot onpermanently wet red-clay tracks or seasonal dirt roads. Typically it would take an entire day ofgood dry weather for a family to visit its relatives only a few kilometers away. In 1975, it took upto three full days to go from Piro to Jimenez to buy provisions or to access the rudimentarygovernmental and municipal services.

    Given these conditions it is easy to see that the most urgent needs expressed by the local peoplewere always better transportation and communication systems and electrical energy. FromTUVAs perspective any advancements on this areas would also improve the chances ofsuccessful project execution. Since expensive investments in transportation systems were out ofreach for a small organization like TUVA, the improvement in energy and communications wereset as one of the first priorities as far back as 1992.

    Providing energy to power radiotelephones and basic illumination was achieved first on a pilotbasis by introducing low-maintenance photovoltaic solar systems in some of the Rio Piro houses.The benefits were almost immediate in saving travel time and making dissemination of valuableinformation quickly available: health emergencies, market prices, messages to relatives and co-workers, even legal advice and important climatic information could be passed on during the

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    rainy-season when weather conditions too often flooded rivers, felled huge trees and causedfrequent mudslides.

    Once this pilot initiative in solar technology had been validated for the climatic conditions of Osa(five hours of average daily solar radiation), a more comprehensive program calledRural Energy

    and Communications was launched officially in 1993. Under this program a small project underthe name of Solar-for-Nature intended to subsidize rural electrification with compensationagreements for forest cover protection in the ecological corridor. This project was receivedenthusiastically by the local people since they could use standing forests in the ecological corridoras an active asset. Forest tracts were placed as collateral for the subsidized installation of a single-family solar energy system. At the same time local individuals were trained to install and servicethe solar energy systems, and a small electric cooperative was proposed. The project soonattracted the interest and support of the National Institute of Electricity (ICE) and the US basedNational Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). In 1994, a regional conference onrenewable solar energy for the Osa was organized by TUVA/ ICE/ NRECA in the Rio Pirovalley, with the assistance of several organi