Linking Development and Conservation: the Role of Community Forestry and Carbon Neutral Coffee under Climate Change in Central Costa Rica

The PhD dissertation will focus on observed synergies between development and conservation, investigating the case of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) applied in community forestry and carbon neutral coffee production. The research will be undertaken in two coffee cooperatives (Coopedota and Coopetarrazú) and in a community forestry receiving PES from the Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Forestal (FONAFIFO). In order to analyze synergy effects, PES participants will be compared with non-participants. Ostrom’s socio-ecological system (SES) framework will be adapted, as it offers the opportunity to analyze the sustainability of a system and to get an overview on complex interactions. Its measures allow for the investigation of a system’s performance in terms of socio-economy and environment. Qualitative (among them the innovative methods Net-Map and Photo-Voice) as well as quantitative methods from socio-economy will be used in this research and will be complemented by ecological methods. Three output papers are planned in order to complete the doctoral study: 1) Governance in the system of Costa Rica’s PES, 2) The ecological effect of PES in the studied systems, 3) The socio-economic effect of PES in the studied systems and the linkage between development and conservation.