Capacidad de diferenciación neuronal y glial de las NPCs

The Costa Rican preparation to REDD+ began in 2008. With the approval of the Bali Action Plan at COP-13, various international platforms were created in order to finance the various arrangements for developing countries to get ready for the implementation of REDD+. The readiness process in Costa Rica has been mostly funded by the FCPF (a REDD+

readiness platform established by the World Bank), though there has also been some additional financial support coming from the German Development Agency (GiZ), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the United Nations’ REDD platform (UN-REDD) and the State Department of the United States (through USAID). Each of these platforms has concentrated in particular aspects of the readiness process (such as political consultation, the development of the safeguards information and monitoring and verification systems), meaning that the process can best be characterized as a fairly complex institutional and organizational arrangement whereby it sometimes feels that there is not one single REDD+ readiness process going on in Costa Rica, but several at once. While FONAFIFO has attempted to centralize decision-making processes around a National REDD+ Secretariat (i.e.: a department within FONAFIFO’s administrative structure) and a REDD+ Commission composed of all interested parties, it is undeniable that the convergence of so many funding agencies and organization has led to a messy negotiation process.

As said, FCPF is the main funding organization in the Costa Rican REDD+ readiness process, and also the actor that fired the starting shot to the process, by selecting Costa Rica as a participant country of their Preparation Fund for REDD+, and committing to the future purchase of carbon emissions for up to 63 million U.S. dollars, once a National REDD+

Strategy and a Emissions Reduction Program be designed by the local authorities (FCPF, 2008; 2014).This purchase of carbon emissions is seen by FONAFIFO as a critical source of funding for the PSA (director, National REDD+ Secretariat, interview, September 28th, 2014). According to officials of the Secretariat, the FCPF constituted the logical alternative for financial support, given that the World Bank had developed a strong relationship with FONAFIFO through the Ecomercados I and II projects, both of which have provided about one third of the PSA funding between 1997 and 2009 (MINAET and FONAFIFO, 2011). Moreover, since Ecomercados II is nearing its end of implementation and expectations of obtaining more resources through the fuel and water taxes (or any other fiscal revenue) was not a viable option in a context defined by growing tensions over the country’s fiscal deficit,³ the potential funds received from the FCPF would become extremely necessary for the continuation and further expansion of the PSA program.

The REDD+ readiness process has been organized following the guidelines of the FCPF and consists of a multi-stage dynamic supported by the development of key documents and components oriented towards detailing the main actions to be developed as part of the Emissions Reduction Program, upon which future carbon purchases would be made.

This process entails the design of several specific components that are of key importance for guaranteeing the economic value of the carbon rights to be transacted between FONAFIFO and the FCPF, such as: 1) defining the baselines that will be used to measure the actual carbon abatements to be realized through the PSA, 2) determining an acceptable methodology for measuring said abatements, 3) establishing a verification and monitoring mechanism to be used to guarantee compliance with carbon abatements from the original carbon owners (i.e.: the actual land owners), 4) determining potential land owners to be enrolled in the program, as well as defining the plan for distributing benefits amongst these in order to guarantee and acceptable level of additionality and conditionality, and 5) designing a safeguards mechanism to protect the benefits and rights of these enrolled parties (FCPF, 2008). In theory, the process should be participatory from the start, allowing for a gradual development of each of these components, as the different actors are offered a chance to weigh in from their different economic and social context and necessities.

In practice, the high level of disconnection and overlapping of the different REDD+ readiness processes happening in Costa Rica and the overbearing forest policy consensus between the state and the private sector have led the first stages of the process to exclude subaltern narratives from being integrated. The first delineation of the various components of the Costa Rican REDD+ strategy happened through the Readiness Program Idea Note (R-PIN), the Readiness Preparation Paper (R-PP), and the Emissions Reduction Program Idea Note (ER-PIN), three key documents in the process that were presented by FONAFIFO in 2008, 2011 and 2013, respectively. The R-PIN and the R-PP are extremely important stages for the REDD+ readiness process as both of them determine the main characteristics of the eventual configuration of the Emissions Reduction Program.

Through the R-PIN, it was decided that the national REDD+

program would be established within the existing programmatic ideas, administrative platform and contract modalities of FONAFIFO’s PSA program, with some minor components executed through SINAC and the National Forestry Office (a para-state agency representing the interests of the industrial forestry sector). In other words, it was decided that the Costa Rican REDD+ program would operate on a national basis and under the venue of the state. The R-PIN also decided which were to be the main areas of intervention of the program, namely, that; 1) most of the funding received from carbon sales through REDD+ would be oriented towards expanding PSA coverage under Forest Conservation modalities, 2) that some of the funding would be directed to projects for combating

forest fires and strengthening existing protected areas, while, 3) another part would be used for designing a more business-minded PSA alternative oriented towards fostering a sustainable forestry sector (FONAFIFO and MINAE, 2008). Indeed, when looked comparatively between the R-PIN and the final draft of the Emissions Reduction Program Document (ER-PD) presented in 2016, these key areas of intervention have barely changed throughout the eight years of the REDD+ readiness process.

Ironically, while the FCPF demands considerable and meaningful participation in the readiness process, both the R-PIN and the R-PP were actually the work of a small policy group that represented state and private sector interests, with absolutely no involvement by indigenous or peasant organizations. Indeed, both documents were produced by representatives from SINAC, FONAFIFO, the National Forestry Office (ONF, a para-state agency that represents the interests of the forest industry), three national and international environmental NGOs with historical ties to the PSA program (namely FUNDECOR, TNC and IUCN), a few members of the academic sector whom also worked as key consultants of the readiness process (mainly from forestry schools at CATIE, the Costa Rican Technology Institute – ITCR – and the EARTH), the Costa Rican Forestry Chamber (CCF, a pro-forestry industry political platform) and consultants hired by FONAFIFO to develop the document.

In other words, the delineation of REDD+ resulted from the work of a small, albeit fairly knowledgeable, policy network, which represented the two dominant policy narratives described in the previous section. Other policy narratives remained without representation, an issue that was duly recognized by the FCPF in its external evaluations of both documents (FCPF, 2008; 2011). Given that both documents were developed and published before the political consultation process began, the market and interventionist narratives are the only ones reflected there.

The market narrative pushes for a harmonization of forest conservation policy with the economic interests of the private forestry sector. Specifically, these groups, headed by the CCF, have used REDD+

to question the low level of openness of the PSA with regards to more lucrative forest business models. From their point of view, the PSA, though a well-intentioned policy, has been historically more akin to the preservation of standing forests than other forestry-based activities such as forest plantations, reforestation and agroforestry. From their perspective, the REDD+ program could be reoriented towards a greater integration of the PSA to forestry business models and as a result, help them counter the ongoing economic crisis affecting the sector. REDD+ was therefore interpreted by them as an alternative for linking forest conservation to highly lucrative forest business models based on the exploitation and reforestation of high-value woods. These preoccupations are duly reflected in key strategic options identified in the R-PIN which consider the expansion of the PSA program centering on modalities

different than Forest Protection and allowing much more contracts for forest plantations, and 2) the development of policies that could allow for local market shifts from using high carbon footprint materials in favor of sustainable wood produced in plantations supported by the PSA (MINAET and FONAFIFO, 2011).

In turn, the second narrative focused more on interventionist instruments. Attention in REDD+ has mostly centered in developing new institutions and resolving enforcement problems regarding already-existing conservation policies. Indeed, actors like SINAC have perceived REDD+ as an alternative for improving institutional capabilities and mobilizing existing plans to strengthen command-and-control mechanisms for conservation. Indeed, this has been reflected in strategic options oriented towards: 1) augmenting the PSA contracts for Forest Protection in 300.000 hectares, emphasizing in key biological corridors and PA buffer zones, 2) financing currently underfunded strategies such as the Plan for Controlling Illegal Wood-Cutting and Forest Fire Management in Protected Areas, or 3) reinforcing the verification and monitoring mechanisms used in the regency system with the funding of new controls through the National College of Agronomical Engineers (CIAGRO). In other words, within the existing hybrid policy framework determining Costa Rican forestry governance, REDD+ has been defined by the interaction of the two main policy narratives, thereby exhibiting both market- and state-oriented agendas of approaching the deforestation problem. While this means that other forest use narratives were obliged to face a negotiation, whereby key issues had already been delimited by the state and business interests, some room existed for indigenous peoples to introduce some aspects of their political agenda.

In other words, by 2011, the Costa Rican state had presented is R-PP and defined the key strategic options and identified the associated risks that would eventually define the National REDD+ Strategy presented in 2015. This happened without actually finishing the preparation phase determined by FCPF, and in absence of a wide consultation process involving other political actors with high stakes on national forest policy-making – such as the indigenous peoples. Indeed, the Social and Environmental Strategic Assessment process had not actually begun at this point, with its first workshop taking place until later on in 2011. Moreover, this consultation process did not have an actual working plan to develop further group-specific consultation workshops until late-2013, several months after the publication of the ER-PIN. It is reasonable to conclude that eventual involvement by subaltern narratives took place in the context of a limited negotiation arena, whereby certain key elements of the REDD+ strategy had been previously developed. This is not to say that there was no room for indigenous people to maneuver, but that the main configuration of the program was already decided before they got to sit at the negotiating table.

8.2.2. Enter subaltern narratives: demands for an indigenous