This cross-cutting analysis draws on five case studies conducted by Innovations for Successful Societies under the auspices of a grant from the British Academy-Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence Program. Published February 2018.
In this interview, Alvaro Ugalde speaks about discovering his own love for conservation biology and for Costa Rica’s biodiversity, especially in Osa, which he describes as one of the most difficult conservation regions to manage. He also explains the role of the Director of the Park Service. Ugalde recalls Costa Rica’s environmental history, detailing his process of founding and supporting expansion of the parks system. He explains that despite much progress in the recent past, the protected areas today are not sufficient. Ugalde emphasizes the importance of proper management of the parks, and explains his belief that educating locals about the ecosystem they inhabit will encourage them to take responsibility for their environmental impact. Ugalde says there can be no conservation without justice, and also talks about compensation efforts for those displaced by conservation projects.
At the time of this interview, Alvaro Ugalde was retired after a career in Costa Rica’s National Parks System. He was widely celebrated as one of the fathers of Costa Rica’s National Parks System. He gained experience and an interest in conservation as a graduate student studying Natural Resource Management at the University of Michigan. He also completed the Park Operations Course at the Grand Canyon and started volunteering at Costa Rica’s national parks even before finishing his BS. He spent three years working as a volunteer and as a park administrator at Santa Rosa National Park, served as the Regional Director of the Osa Conservation Area, and as the Director of the Park Service for Costa Rica. Along with Mario Boza, he co-founded the country’s national parks system, which now protects more than a fourth of the land in Costa Rica. Ugalde passed away shortly after this interview, on February 15, 2015.
In 2007, the tropical forests of Marqués de Comillas, a municipality in Mexico’s Lacandon jungle, were disappearing rapidly. Poor farmers who had migrated to the region during the 1970s relied on clear-cutting the forest to open up land for agriculture, and they were cutting more and more trees every year. After 1997, the average deforestation rate accelerated to 4.8% per year from 2.7%. By 2005, only 35% of the municipality’s forested area remained. In 2007, former environment minister Julia Carabias decided to take action. Carabias and her team at Natura Mexicana, a nongovernmental organization, joined with local communities to enroll participants in the National Forestry Commission’s payments for environmental services (PES) program and find economic alternatives to clearing the forest for agricultural use. PES, which remunerated landholders who preserved their trees, immediately slowed deforestation in the areas where it was implemented. Natura Mexicana’s work in environmental education, land planning, and ecotourism development helped change farmers’ attitudes about the importance of protecting the rain forest.
Blair Cameron drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Mexico in March and April 2015. The case was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Case published September 2015.
