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ECOTICOS: APPLIED SOLUTIONS ACROSS DISCIPLINES FOR THE SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE TÉRRABA-SIERPE REGION OF COSTA RICA

"ECOTICOS: MARCANDO HITOS" / "ECOTICOS: SETTING MILESTONES"

TOP RESULTS1
The most important accomplishments of the ECOTICOS project over the last two years are:

1. Timely on the ground expertise that led to the approval of the Térraba Sierpe Management
Plan (TSMP), an important regulatory victory bolstered by the ECOTICOS project team's
socio-economical and environmental data from our Ecosystem Services Valuation and
Multicriteria Analysis work. Our team of experts was called upon to give official testimony to
the Regional Area de Conservación de OSA (ACOSA) Council which subsequently recognized
our contributions as critical in the approval of the management plan. This was confirmed by an
independent stakeholder evaluation performed by our colleagues at Conservation
International.2 The ACOSA upper administrators and field personnel have also expressed their
support for the ECOTICOS approach while actively participating in the project’s exercises.
Today, six draft management plans remain to complete the necessary legislative framework to
protect all of the conservation areas of ACOSA. The ECOTICOS methodology is recognized as a
proven approach for ensuring that these remaining plans are completed in the near future.
Following approval of TSMP we developed a mechanism for choosing future sustainable
development projects.

2. Creation of the most comprehensive compilation of habitat, water quality and fisheries
database for this area. Also, using a historical land use Geographic Information System (GIS)
database that spans from 1948 through 2005,- we are the first group to scan, stitch,
georeference and quantify the land use changes of this area. This should prove to be an
invaluable tool for landuse planning and implementation of future sustainable development
projects. The historical aerial photography records for the Osa peninsula are housed at the
Instituto Geográfico Nacional in San José. ECOTICOS made significant additions to their records
by providing more than 2,000 aerial photos obtained on eight flights donated by Lighthawk, a
non-profit organization, in 2009 and 2010. Many remote coastal areas were documented

1
The materials and reports that accompany this Executive Summary are posted at: http://www.uvm.edu/cdae/ecoticos
2
Conservation International conducted a performance evaluation all of the Blue Moon funded projects, including
stakeholder input and policy impacts. We received their feedback at a general projects meeting on 7/12/10. The feedback
on the process was very positive. José Oduber Rivera (workshop facilitator) highlighted the respect, inclusiveness and
strengths of the ECOTICOS approach along with our key contributions towards the creation, discussion and approval of the
TS management plan. There was a general consensus that we have laid the necessary ground work for a second phase
focused on sustainable project development and adoption of the ECOTICOS model in other conservation areas.
leading to the first coastal ecosystem characterization of the Térraba Sierpe mangroves. This
Baseline Information is readily available to all interested parties, including a virtual library of
over 200 PDF articles and reports. In the past two months we have received individual formal
requests from the OSA municipality, the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica and the ACOSA
Regional Sub director to access our Baseline Data for their current work plans. It is important
to note that in Costa Rica access to this type of information is frequently plagued by
bureaucratic protocols that render prompt access almost impossible. In the ECOTICOS case
you need only to send a small notice to any of our team members to gain access to this
information.

3. Our team earned the trust and respect of local people, NGO's, academia, business sector and
local government. We are the only active transdisciplinary group - with national and
international institutions - working in this area that has been able to mediate in the
environmental management conflicts of the area with a clear participatory approach. We built
on the original draft of the management plans for all of the ACOSA's protected areas, initiated
by one of our team members (UCI/ELAP), and have established close institutional bonds that
will remain beyond the first phase of this project. This will facilitate future collaborative work
and provides a clear advantage over more conventional single organizational approaches. One
key aspect of our work is that local participation has been the motor behind the development
of this management plan. Unlike the usual top down approach, we used a bottom up process
which allowed several hundreds of local stakeholders to effectively convey to the national and
local government their wishes for a prompt and integrated governance structure.

4. Empowered local communities by engaging local stakeholders to outline twenty sustainable


development proposals that, in a future second phase, will implement key aspects of the
recently approved management plan. This ensures that future efforts are not detached from
one another. We have identified potential synergies between local parties that would only
promote win-win scenarios. Representatives of local government (Municipality, State
Representatives, ACOSA, ASADA from Uvita, Punta Mala, Palmar Sur, Sierpe Ojochal and San
Buenaventura), the business community, NGOs, academia and local leaders sat at the same
table and decided what the appropriate next steps could be using the management plan as a
guideline. Fine tuning this exercise is the natural next step for the ECOTICOS project.

5. Fostered a spirit of conviviality, transparency and collaboration with other Bluemoon Fund
grant recipients by working together with ACEPESA, Conservation International, Rainforest
Alliance, The Stroud Center, CREST, Nectandra, and FOO. We also reached out to new partners
such as the Nature Conservancy, EALA, the Wild Foundation, Prohumana 21, Judesur,
Lighthawk, UNED, NASA, Earthwatch Institute, CCT, Fundación Corcovado, MarViva and Mayor
Alberto Cole from the local municipality, with whom we exchanged GIS information and
sketched out plans for future collaboration related to land tenure data and possible ecological
restoration. All of our meetings had an open door policy and a solutions oriented spirit.
PROBLEM STATEMENT

A southbound drive along the Pacific coastline of Costa Rica reveals the rapid spread of mass sun and
sea tourism, with all the problems it brings. Habitat destruction is rampant; high-rise hotels sprout;
billboards for American real estate firms litter the roadside; illegal developments abound; roads
carved through forested mountainsides collapse blocking rivers; runoff from new construction fills
mangrove estuaries with so much sediment that navigation is no longer possible. Cultural impacts
include increased drug usage, prostitution, and theft. The area is clearly under siege and in dire need
of increased sustainability practices to improve the performance of economic, cultural and
environmental indicators and overall quality of life for the local villagers.

The protected area of the “Humedal Nacional Térraba-Sierpe” (TS) presently marks the end of the
development boom and the start of the Osa peninsula, one of Costa Rica’s best preserved wilderness
areas, boasting one of the planet’s greatest concentrations of biodiversity. The TS mangrove forest,
one of the largest on the pacific coast of Central America, is a keystone ecosystem within this complex
system. Limited access has played a large part in protecting this area from runaway development.
Until fairly recently the government was planning to build one of the largest international airport in
Central America, capable of landing 2000 tourists a day. There are plans for many traditional marinas.
The Pan-American Highway is slowly creeping forward, and a massive power plant looms on the
planning horizon. All of these proposed high carbon developments have now been placed on hold due
to the current economic recession.

Should Costa Rica build a world-class airport in the TS region? Will the airport prove an economic
success in today’s precarious global economy? What will be the ecological and social costs? What are
the alternatives? In a complex ecological economic system, it is extremely difficult to answer such
questions, and impossible to answer them definitively, yet it is imperative to try. To address these
questions the Community Development and Applied Economics Department and the Gund Institute
for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont (UVM) received a two year grant from the Blue
Moon Fund to work in the TS mangroves of Costa Rica. In August 2008 UVM launched the ECOTICOS
Project (Education, Communication, Technical, Institutional and Conceptual Solutions) with the
primary goal of identifying the threats, examples, and opportunities to promote the sustainable
development of the TS region. Local experts Bernardo Aguilar from Fundación Neotropica, Eduard
Muller from the Escuela Latinoamericana de Areas Protegidas, Cornelia Miller from the Centro
Nacional de Alta Tecnologia and Helena Molina from the University of Costa Rica, David Batker and
Maya Kocian from Earth Economics, Ken Lindeman from the Florida Institute of Technology, and
Robert Costanza, Joshua Farley and Azur Moulaert from UVM formed the core team of ECOTICOS .

The work of Donella Meadows, one of the world’s leading systems thinkers, provided us some insights
as to how to proceed. In one of her more relevant works "Limits to Growth", Meadows identified
twelve leverage points for changing complex systems; the ECOTICOS Project adapted these principles
into a practical framework entitled Technical, Institutional and Conceptual Solutions and proposes
that to promote sustainability it is imperative to work within and across all three levels.
THE CORE OBJECTIVES OF THE ECOTICOS PROJECT:

(A) Technical Lever Solution – Geographic Information System Database: over the course of the
project a series of GIS and Google Earth maps were generated to illustrate land use trends, points and
areas of interest, protected area boundaries and distribution of ecosystem services. This was
complemented with a combination of site visits, recognizance flights, personal interviews, and on the
ground training. An online gallery has been made public for every resident and visitor to share their
images or videos empowering them to become better stewards of the land and sea.

(B) Institutional Lever Solution - A series of community meetings were convened to capture the views
of local stakeholders on what they saw and would like to see across their landscape. These meetings
allowed fine tuning for both an Ecosystem Services Valuation Exercise and a Multi-criteria Analysis. At
the same time we met with local leaders to explain the ECOTICOS process and invite them to join our
group exercises.

(C) Conceptual Levers Solution - Habitat, Water Quality, and Fishery Baseline: during the initial phase
of this project, substantial efforts were made towards the development of multiple baselines to
assess habitats, water quality and the current status of fisheries. Even though there is no silver bullet
for assessing threats to sustainable development the application of the information developed will
provide robust measures of ecosystem health in order to prioritize and better apply future
management and restoration practices.

ECOTICOS Methodology Diagram – Three necessary levers for change

Embedded in each of these three levers are the two most important pieces of the puzzle: Education
and Communication. A series of exercises ranging from green mapping, photojournalism, storytelling
and small business development were undertaken to establish feedback loop across all three axes.
We believe that for any solution to take root it must be addressed from all these three axes, therefore
we designed our own project following this principle.
PROJECT ADMINISTRATION (By UVM/UCI/ELAP)

The following timeline was used to manage the ECOTICOS team members.
ADMINISTRATION (continued)
ECOTICOS 2008 - 2010 Team Members

Institution Members Title: Role


Costa Rica
Cornelia Miller PRIAS Coordinator: GIS Mapping
Ileana Mendez Staff, GIS Mapping
Centro Nacional de Alta Tecnología Christian Vargas Staff, GIS Mapping
Mauricio Zamora Staff, GIS Mapping
Milena Berrocal Staff, GIS Mapping
Bernardo Aguilar Director: Multicriteria Analysis
Karla Córdoba Staff: Communication and Sponsors
Paola Herrera Staff: Field Station and Administration
Marcia Carranza Staff: Field Station Coordination
Fundación Neotrópica
Ligia Umaña Staff: Education and volunteers
Nelson Aguilar Staff: Accounting
Sebastian Salazar Staff: GIS Mapping
Alexander González Staff: Central Office Management
Helena Molina Associate Professor: Baseline
Universidad de Costa Rica Raquel Romero Graduate Student
Centro de Investigaciones Marinas, Tayler Clark Graduate Student
Escuela de Biología Carlos Garita Graduate Student
Andres Beita Graduate Student
Eduard Muller President & Founder, Senior Advisor
Frank Araya Staff, Accounting
Universidad de Cooperación Internacional Olivier Chassot Director, Senior Advisor
Allan Valverde Staff, Project Coordinator
Escuela Latinoamericana de Areas Protegidas Marcial Baltodano Staff, Project Management Institute
Maria Manavella Staff, Project Management Institute
Edgar Castillo Staff, Field Entrepreneurship
Carlos Leon Consultant: local contact
Oscar Peraza Consultant: local contact
Rudy Rios Consultant: local contact
Jorge Uribe Local stakeholder: Networking
Jakeline Gomez Events coordinator: Local Contact
Key Partners working with us in the area
Gabriel Quesada Professor: Universidad Estatal a Distancia
(other than the Bluemoon grantees)
Armando Ubeda Lighthawk: Mesoamerican Coordinator
Monica Uribe LIVEDIVERSE: Graduate Student
Alberto Cole OSA Municipality: Mayor
Urias Porras Coopemangle: Local contact
Armond T. Joyce Local Stakeholder, NASA contact/contractor
United States
University of Vermont Azur Moulaert Principal Investigator: Management
Community Development & Applied Economics Joshua Farley Professor: Senior Advisor
Elisa Ziglar Departmental Coordinator: Accounts
Jessie Simmons Student: local networking
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics Robert Costanza Director: Senior Advisor
David Batker Executive Director: Valuation, Meetings
Earth Economics, Seattle
Maya Kocian Research Analyst: Valuation, Meetings
Florida Institute of Technology Ken Lindeman Research Professor: Baseline
Northswell Media, LLC Terry Gibson Freelance Photographer
Independent Consultant, VT Burton Putrah Environmental Analyst: GIS Mapping
Note: People in bold (21 out of 46) where continuously involved throughout the entire project.
ADMINISTRATION (continued)

What progress has been achieved in meeting the objectives and goals laid out in the grant proposal?

The University of Vermont acted as the lead entity responsible for overseeing all administrative and
management aspects of the ECOTICOS project. Azur Moulaert, Research Associate at the Community
Development and Applied Economics Department, is the Project Director and is in charge of the daily
mechanics of this project. Moulaert travelled to Costa Rica three times a year for up to three weeks
scheduling one-on-one and full team meetings. Each trip has a field visit component to strengthen
ties with local institutions and document progress in the area. Team members located in the US have
traveled to meet their peers and strategize. Those who are based out of Costa Rica communicate
weekly and regularly go to the field. The ECOTICOS Team convenes on average once a week via VOIP
teleconference. The two primary tools for keeping track of deliverables are Skype and an online
database (running on a Google Applications grant) where key management documents are stored.
Back in Vermont Moulaert periodically convenes with both Robert Costanza and Joshua Farley to
review progress. Azur Moulaert maintained regular contact with Blue Moon personnel via email,
phone, face to face meetings, trip reports and annual reports.

What challenges or obstacles has your organization faced in meeting the goals and objectives?

As it is natural with projects that have team members in various locations and countries synchronizing
schedules is challenging. We were able to coordinate our efforts through weekly, non-mandatory,
calls, one-on-one sessions and exchanging electronic messages. A second challenge was staying true
to the core objectives of this project while processing the realities and the feedback from the field.
Many organizations have a stake in ACOSA, each one has a story to tell. However, even though in the
last two years local politics and economics have dramatically changed (the collapse of the real estate
market and the national elections) the ECOTICOS team focused on three essential products that
galvanized local efforts: a map of land use history and ecosystem services, a series of meetings for
local stakeholders to craft a common vision of development, and a rigorous scientific baseline. The
final challenge was to get the media's attention we did several press conferences with some degree of
success. Now that we have the final results a marketing and media campaign should follow.

Have the goals and objectives changed? How?

All of the original goals and objectives were met. In addition we added an extra objective of becoming
"Expert Witnesses" during the review of the TS Management Plan. Initially we were only going to do
an Ecosystem Services Valuation based on a land use value transfer technique yet after conferring
with various local experts we added a Multi Criteria Analysis. This innovative participatory design
secured the passage of the Management Plan and gained the credibility of local stakeholders.

Please provide a list of outcomes for the grant period.

(a) Effectively managed an international transdisciplinary team and established strong local presence.
(b) Managed budget, deliverables and timeline on target. All contracts were clearly outlined and met.
(c) Fostered a spirit of conviviality, transparency and collaboration within and outside the team.
(d) Kept a goal oriented approach with necessary adaptive management calibration when needed.
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES & GREEN MAPPING (By UVM/UCI/ELAP/CENAT)

What progress has been achieved in meeting the objectives and goals laid out in the grant proposal?

The GIS database for the Térraba-Sierpe National Wetlands is the backbone of ECOTICOS. Historical
information collected during the design of the management plan for the area by the University for
International Cooperation / Latin American School for Protected Areas and The Nature Conservancy
(2007-2009) along with additional information collected through the project implementation is now
readily available on the web. The database is set up using different tools.

What challenges or obstacles has your organization faced in meeting the goals and objectives?

Costa Rica has no open access centralized system to review information such as protected areas, land
tenure and development restrictions. People feel powerless in the face of development. Regional
information is disjointed, spread all over the place and access is poor.

Another challenge is accessing the information that is held under cryptic memorandums of
understanding and ongoing research clauses. For example, both PRODUS at UCR and the BID Catastro
Projects have recent land ownership data that is key to resolve land use conflicts in the region.
However, when approached, both organizations refer to their work as "under development" and state
that they are unable to share data at the time. In particular, as it relates to land ownership (parcel
data) BID-Catastro has yet to map our area of interest. Luck has it that the Mayor of Osa Mr. Alberto
Cole has taken it upon his administration to hire a crew of GIS experts and is almost done with the
parcel mapping of the entire area. When approached Mr. Cole shared data with us and offered all of
the support of his administration, to the point that he endorsed the approval of the regional TS
management plan.

Finally, mapping land use change in an area that has such limited data is a challenge. We could have
used more field work to fild check current practices but feel confident that at a landscape scale we
have captured the general lay of the land, its associated ecosystem services and their intrinsic value.

Have the goals and objectives changed? How?

All of the original goals and objectives were met. One remaining challenge is developing the ability to
export all of our GIS Layer Data to a Google Earth Format - this software protocol is still in its infancy
and limits the ability of sharing data with the everyday web user. This goal remains a challenge.
However, we have developed an alternative solution where people can use a simple PDF document to
review the land use changes that have occurred in the TS Wetlands from 1948 through 2005. We also
have added simple point data and polygons to an open map that illustrates local opportunities.

Please provide a list of outcomes for the grant period.

(a) Scanned, geo-referenced and interpreted land use in and around the TS Wetlands > 100,000 ha.
(b) Created the most detailed GIS system that the TS area has ever had. Shared with local players.
(c) Conducted a thorough field recognizance under harsh conditions, by car, boat and private plane.
(d) Educated local stakeholders about the concepts and importance of ecosystem services.
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES VALUATION/MULTICRITERIA ANALYSIS (By Neotropica and Earth Economics)

What progress has been achieved in meeting the objectives and goals laid out in the grant proposal?

Neotropica was not part of the original grant proposal but we feel that we have contributed to
meeting the objectives effectively. As of the goals that we laid out in the beginning of our
participation we accomplished 90% because we decided not to use one methodological tool for the
sake of increasing representativeness in the one that was more useful and significant at the time to
achieve the strategic objectives of the project. Earth Economics was part of the original team and was
able to jump at the opportunity of coordinating an Ecosystem Services Valuation exercise with a
Multicriteria Analysis. This is the first time that both of these methods are lined up. All of the goals of
the original proposal were met. We even delivered a historical timeline analysis of the value of
Ecosystem Services for the TS wetlands. We designed and implemented a new framework for passage
of regulatory reform that can now be replicated throughout the region.

What challenges or obstacles has your organization faced in meeting the goals and objectives?

Low participation in the initial turnout of stakeholders to our workshops was an issue. We decided to
correct this by organizing a whole second round of workshops in diverse locations closer to the
communities involved. In the end we did get good representation but it meant extra work. Neotropica
had a small budget due to their late arrival to the project. Earth Economics had not worked in the TS
region prior to this project and had to invest extra travel time to meet and greet the local players.

Have the goals and objectives changed? How?

Neotropica had to adjust the methodology to increase the quality and efficacy of results. Our
objective was the result of the first round of conversation with local leadership prior to our arrival.
Our Multicriteria Analysis toolkit fit in well with the overall objectives of the project. Earth Economics
met the original objective of valuing the ecosystem services of the TS Wetlands. Since the mapping
component of this project looked back all the way to 1948 we also added a historical analysis of a
core zone to show how the value has declined over time.

Please provide a list of outcomes for the grant period.

(a) Developed solid and useful theoretical & methodological framework for the multicriteria analysis.
(b) Applied framework in a participatory and scientifically to assure credibility of the results.
(c) Provided useful information to gauge the support of communities in the work area for the diverse
macro development options that could affect the TS Wetlands; gauge the support of communities in
the work area for the management plan for the TS Wetlands. Combine in a useful and practical way
the ecosystem service valuation and the ecosystem baseline data with community rankings of
scenarios in order to have a solid perspective of the alternatives for the region.
(d) Used preliminary results to influence policy decisions in a timely manner by presenting them
quickly to the Director of ACOSA and presenting them at the request of ACOSA’s director at the
Regional Council meeting where the management plan for the HNTS was finally approved.
HABITAT WATER QUALITY AND FISHERIES BASELINE (CIMAR/FIT)

What progress has been achieved in meeting the objectives and goals laid out in the grant proposal?

In terms of the natural resources baseline component, progress was steady and thorough. We have
achieved the goals and objectives (including modifications discussed below) that were laid out in the
grant proposal.

What challenges or obstacles has your organization faced in meeting the goals and objectives?

With careful budgeting of graduate student time and large amounts of pro bono faculty time, the 20 K
total funding component of this module was enough to do an extensive literature survey for the HNTS
and ACOSA areas, build a comprehensive and analytical synthesis report across multiple disciplines,
compile and analyze GIS datalayers, participate in a site flyover, and make 2 site visits for ground-
truthing, limited data collection, and public meetings.

Comprehensive field surveys and laboratory analyses with the necessary temporal and spatial
sampling resolution were not possible in addition to the above tasks.

Have the goals and objectives changed? How?

Completion of natural resource baseline components during the project included the merging and
addition of a few objectives. We combined the literature syntheses for Fisheries and Water Quality
and added a needed Habitat component.

Some project modifications were engendered by the literature itself, for example, we discovered
much literature on T-S planning from the 1970s through 1990s that had not been comprehensively
assembled or reviewed. This resulted in a greater emphasis on the expanded literature synthesis and
virtual library.

Please provide a list of outcomes for the grant period.

In addition to the final summary report and associated appendices3, primary products include:

(a) A comprehensive technical report on TS habitats, water quality and fisheries.


(b) A new virtual document library with over 240 searchable and instantly accessible reports (online
or as a CD) in association with a GIS datalayer and map library produced with other ECOTICOS
partners.
(c) Collaborative threat and management response inputs with other team members (e.g., multi-
criteria analyses) to help actualize the application of findings towards improved HNTS management.

3
Appendices within the final report include: App. 1 with the references developed (almost all available as pdfs in the
virtual library), App. 2 on water quality (2 Figures, 5 Tables), App. 3 on fishes and fisheries (7 Figures, 8 Tables), App..4 on
habitats/biodiversity (3 Figures, 28 Tables), App. 5 on land use (15 Tables), App. 6 on threats and responses (2 Figures, 5
Tables), App. 7 on aerial imagery (12 Figures, a sample of 703 still images and 189 videos), App. 8 on multicriteria analysis,
App. 9 (outline of the technical report).

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