Conservation Agreements
Fundación Cordillera Tropical (FCT) aims to incorporate the imperatives of farmer livelihoods into its conservations strategies. To this end we are working to apply a system of conservation incentives, in which downstream environmental service buyers compensate landowners for the protection of tropical montane forest and páramo habitats.
(i) Environmental education may raise the willingness to accept payments and increase levels of participation. For the coming generation, in particular, it provides a safety net for the future of Conservation Agreements, replacing current conservation proponents from outside the community with others from within.
(ii) Research and monitoring
will produce direct benefits to community members who provide services
to researchers and monitoring teams. More importantly, to the extent
the resident population
participates as para-biologists, para-hydrologists
and para-archaeologists, we expect to see a transition from the natural
habitats and archaeological landscapes being seen as ‘other’ to a sense
that they are in fact ‘us’. Conservation Agreements are by nature
voluntary, and we anticipate important gains in levels of interest when
rural residents understand and value their natural habitats and cultural
landscapes.
(iii) Investments in agricultural
production will focus on improving pasture production
because this is currently the major generator of income for residents.
Linked explicitly with binding conservation agreements, improvements in
pasture
productivity reduce the demand for forest and páramo soils,
occupy the labor force in existing agricultural areas, and raise family
incomes. Silvopastoral systems can also generate additional income from
carbon capture.
Studies are underway to establish baselines for the creation of the Conservation Agreement program. These include land tenure analysis, demarcation of participating properties, a socioeconomic study and assessment of opportunity costs, a threats analysis, and the design of a monitoring system