How Can Carbon Sequestration in Tropical Forests be Rewarded? Evidence from Costa Rica

As empirical evidence that human activities are affecting the global climate increases, so do efforts to identify and evaluate climate mitigation and adaptation options. Forest managers and policy makers around the world are increasingly participating in and following such efforts, since forestry activities (e.g., reforestation, slowing deforestation, or improved forest management) could in principle play an important role within the set of climate-change mitigation strategies. According to the last IPCC assessment (Watson et al. 1996), initiatives to slow deforestation, promote natural forest regeneration and create a global forestation program (plantations and agroforestry) have the potential to offset 12–15 percent of global fossil fuel carbon emissions from 1995 and 2050. More than two-thirds of such opportunities exist in the tropics. While the magnitude of these numbers indicates a potential role for landand forestry-based projects as carbon sinks, questions have been raised over the feasibility of such projects as mitigation strategies, especially in developing countries. These questions stem from concerns about environmental integrity reflected in the requirements of Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, which clarifies the potential role of developing countries in climate-change mitigation. Their key role comes within the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Developing countries can contribute carbon offsets through the CDM only if these offsets are “additional” to what would