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Long-term resource mobilization at Costa Rica Forever: the case of a single closing deal

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The Forever Costa Rica (FCR) Program is a public-private partnership whose mission is to make Costa Rica one of the first developing countries to meet the goals of the Programme of Work on Protected Areas of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), thereby consolidating an ecologically representative, effectively managed system of protected areas that are adapted to the effects of climate change and have sustainable sources of funding.

The Peace for Nature initiative, developed while Oscar Arias was in office, gave way to the idea of setting up a trust fund that would make all efforts to sustain Costa Rica’s biodiversity sustainable. The Linden Trust for Conservation, the Moore Foundation and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) joined hands to review the lessons learned from the experience of environmental funds around the world and to launch a global fundraising campaign to build the trust fund.

A global fundraising campaign should have a very concrete success target, which in the Costa Rican case was to make it the first developing country to fulfill the Programme of Work for Protected Areas established by the CBD. The appeal of this target and its national impact were factors that made it possible to raise USD 56 million despite the adverse context of a serious global financial crisis.
Twenty-six percent of the land in Costa Rica is under some category of protection. Despite the enormous efforts made, the national protected area system still has conservation voids that need to be addressed to achieve adequate ecological representation. The primary gap is in the marine area. The jurisdictional waters of Costa Rica, covering 567,928 square kilometers between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, are estimated to hold 3.5 percent of all marine species in the world, 90 of which are endemic. However, only 1 percent of this area is protected. Overfishing, habitat destruction, unregulated development of the coastal plains, invasive species, and climate change place this important marine biodiversity at risk.
Category: #Debt-for-nature Swap #Donations #Fundraising #Long-term Financing #Resource Mobilization