Policy innovations for private forest management and conservation in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a leader in innovative forest conservation and management policies, including a program of direct payments to private forest landowners for environmental services. This approach is widely advocated but rarely implemented, and thus the Costa Rican experience constitutes a valuable real-world policy experiment. We discuss the motivation for this program, its domestic and international funding sources, and the structure of contracts with landowners. The successes and challenges facing the Costa Rican program offer insights for other countries-both developed and developing-regarding policies for private forest management.