Unplanned, aggressive coastal development is threatening beautiful beaches. To help address one of Costa Rica’s most serious environmental problems, researchers from the Environment for Development initiative (EfD) are evaluating the performance and impact of a voluntary environmental regulation and certification initiative called the Blue Flag Ecological Program.

Despite of the clear global environmental benefits of increasing the amount of protected areas, how these conservation policies affect the well being of individuals in nearby localities is still under debate. Using household surveys with highly disaggregated geographic reference, this study explores how national parks have affected wages and unemployment in Costa Rica for the period 2000-2007.

In this paper, we investigate what the literature has found by analyzing the relationship between trade liberalization and deforestation

Our goals are to identify the areas where the literature has reached agreements, where it still has not, and the areas where more research is required.

The authors examine the performance of community organizations that provide safe drinking water in rural Costa Rica.

Using household surveys with highly disaggregated geographic reference, the authors explored how national parks affect local wages in Costa Rica and how effects on local welfare can be positive or negative in different parks or even within different areas of a park.

The chapter explores the links between ecosystem services (ES) and agricultural productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

Where feasible, the discussion presents, in economic terms, the contribution of ES to agriculture, the social and agricultural costs of poor management of ES, and the opportunities that harnessing these services present to farmers and to society. Both cropping and animal production systems are covered, as are actors from smallholders to large agribusinesses.

Part of the UNDP Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean: A biodiversity super power.

Report aims to inform policy makers and businesses in LAC  about the economic risks and opportunities of undertaking productive activities that impact on and are influenced by biodiversity and  Ecosystem Services (ES).The Report is a tool to assist governments and stakeholders to analyze the role of ES in order to incorporate them into economic planning, policy and investment at the sectoral level.

Research Fellow Alvaro Umaña is the Head and Political Coordinator of the Costa Rican Negotiating Team at Copenhagen.

Dr. Alvaro Umaña, Research Fellow at EfD Central America, was designated as Head and Political Coordinator of the Costa Rican Negotiating Team for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15), Denmark, 7-18 December 18, 2009.

In his own words yesterday, December 1st, after the presentation of the Negotiating Team to press, he said: