How do you earn money from owning land? Throughout much of Costa Rica’s history, a surefire way of using your land to earn an income was through cattle. All you needed to do was clear any forest or brush, let the grasses take hold, and you could support a certain amount of cattle per hectare that could later be sold once properly fattened up.
While traditionally less profitable, heavily forested land provides a number of vital environmental functions. Forests are an important part of the water cycle, they are a carbon sink, they help to regulate the local climate, and they are home to immense amounts of biodiversity both in the trees and plants themselves and the animals that live amongst them.
You can sell a fat cow at auction. But how can you receive payment for your property’s ecosystem services? That’s where Fondo de Biodiverisdad Sostenible (FBS) comes in. FBS is a program that pays landowners participating in their programming a certain amount per hectare of forest that the landowner agrees to protect.
FBS has been hard at work over the last twelve years. In that time, they have worked with 127 farms, protecting nearly 10,000 hectares of forest. The families participating in their programming have received nearly $3,700,000 worth of payments!
Here’s a quote from my friend Lucía Valverde, who is a Program Technical Specialist for the conservation program, “what FBS does is very special, it has managed to unite people from all around the country in a very united community with a common goal: to conserve biodiversity.’’
My personal interest in FBS is not because I participate in their programming. Unfortunately, I do not yet own a large, forested farm in Costa Rica (Someday I will). My love of FBS stems from the fact they have provided me with some of the best adventures of my life. Over the last several years, FBS has contracted me to monitor the biodiversity of some of their participating farms with my camera traps. My goal was to showcase the biodiversity that they were protecting through their conservation programming.
For a cumulative 15 months since 2019, FBS has sent me out to farms all over Costa Rica. I recorded my first white-lipped peccary videos in northern Guanacaste. I got to see what it feels like when the horse you’re riding kicks off of the rocky riverbed and begins swimming near Tenorio.
I got to explore farms in Limón while needing to speed back to my hotel before the nationwide curfew during the pandemic. And I rode in a little wooden boat with Don Gerardo down an ever-shrinking series of rivers to reach his farm in the middle of the jungle in Osa. I got to experience all of this while recording and learning about the vast array of wildlife species in every corner of this little country.
FBS has done so much important work over the last twelve years, thanks in great part to the international donations that fund their programs, and I wish them more success in the future. I created a special wildlife video to celebrate their 12th anniversary. Take a look below.
About the Author
Vincent Losasso, founder of Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoring, is a biologist who works with camera traps throughout Costa Rica. Learn more about his projects on facebook or instagram. You can also email him at: vincent@guanacastewildlifemonitoring.com
