REGISTRO DE POTENCIALES EMPLEADORES

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The ASBC, created in 2005, is located in the Pacific versant of the Talamanca Mountain Range in Costa Rica, and includes a core and buffer area. In the northern part, the corridor is delimited by the Chirripó National Park and Las Nubes Biological Reserve. To the east, the limit follows the Cedral watershed to the Calientillo river until reaching the Pital river (Fig. 3). The southern boundaries follow forest remnants along the Los Cusingos Biological Reserve. To the west, the corridor follows the trajectory of La Hermosa river. The Peñas Blancas Watershed is the core of the corridor and provides most of the ecological altitudinal connectivity with an incomplete riparian habitat linear patch, defined as the central focal element (Centro Científico Tropical & ASOCUENCA, 2016; Daugherty, 2005; Onca Na, 2014). The core area is a strip of land following the Peñas Blancas river from an altitude of 750 meters above sea level in Los Cusingos Biological Reserve to 1300 masl in Las Nubes Biological Reserve (LNB).

Within the corridor, these protected areas are some of the most intact forest patches. There are seven communities: Quizarrá, Santa Elena and Montecarlo are closer to the core of the corridor, while San Francisco, San Ignacio, Santa María, Santa Marta and Trinidad are in the buffer area. Four elements are

very characteristic of the corridor: 1) the Peñas Blancas river that connects the upper and lower section of the corridor, touching both protected areas, LNB and Los Cusingos; 2) the historical figure of Alexander Skutch, a champion of the conservation agenda, and the world community of Ornithologists; 3) birds, with the Guaco or laughing falcon (Herpetoptheres cachinnans) as the symbol of the corridor; and finally 4) the coffee production matrix that informed the original creation of the ASBC, in which transition from sun-grown coffee to shade-sun-grown coffee was center stage (Daugherty, 2005).

Figure 3: Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor. Source (Jiménez, Montoya, Bolaños, & Alvarado, Under Preparation)

It is hard to identify an account that summarizes the creation of the corridor. Based on Daugherty (2005), when first created, the corridor consisted of forest patches of various sizes, ages and species composition: agricultural fields (primarily coffee and sugar cane), pastures and degraded lands. Three main topics dominated the creation of the corridor, the conservation of biodiversity, the production of market-based solutions to incentivize conservation, and the pursuit of community development. The main partners that took part in its construction were York University, The Tropical Science Centre (CCT), and the local agro-producer cooperative Coopeagri. They based the corridor on a joint project that aimed to

transform the agricultural mode from sun-grown coffee to shade-grown coffee, which is a more sustainable strategy for production. The creation of a corridor-certified brand to target the boutique coffee market in Canada with the help of Timothy’s World Coffee supported this transformation. This was the central rationale for the creation of the corridor, merging ecological production with green consumerism to incentivize farmers to conserve their lands with potential earnings exceeding even those of fair-trade coffee (Daugherty, 2005). It was expected that community development, improved landscape and better local economies would be achieved simultaneously.

The objectives of the corridor varied greatly through the years as the mission, vision and strategic priorities have changed continuously to include: archeological protection; waste management; creation of small business; tourism; education; research; economic development; and regional planning (Centro Científico Tropical & ASOCUENCA, 2016; Daugherty, 2005; Onca Na, 2014). From the strategic plans it can be concluded that, as an environmental solution, connectivity and restoration of habitat has remained as the overarching purpose. Research from Acuña Prado et al. (2017) suggests that the corridor has been partly successful at achieving this overriding goal. Their study from 2005 to 2016 shows a tendency of continuous increase of forest cover and forest patches, with a 5.6% increase for the 11 years of their research. Primary forest recovered 3.6% of the total land area, for a total of 35% of the ASBC area. This increase of 339 hectares seems to come from the conversion of human grasslands, coffee farms, and bare land. It is not possible to establish causality of that recovery, but it is clear that the corridor has created a context that can motivate reforestation. The reversal of the deforestation trend from 1998-2008 reported by Rapson, Bunch, & Daugherty (2012) is evidence to support that claim. Nonetheless, there is no information available to suggest that purposeful habitat restoration fully accounts for that recovery. It is equally possible that this recovery came from other causes, for example, macroeconomic processes that have produced abandonment of the land. Finally, it is important to remark that with the forest another element in the landscape has grown, which is infrastructure. After 11 years infrastructure has increased by 1.3% and represents 4.6% of the ASBC total area (Acuña Prado et al, 2017).

The previous recapitulation draws a picture of a landscape recovery that seems poorly connected to the management of the corridor or its purpose as an environmental solution, achieving habitat creation and not necessarily habitat connectivity. The random recovery has happened in agricultural areas, mostly

cow fields and coffee farms, and not associated with the connectivity within watersheds, along with increasing pressure in this area by the development of infrastructure. In fact, Acuña et al. (2017) show little recovery in the main connectivity route, mainly the Peñas Blancas watershed, suggesting no intentional pattern for connectivity (Acevedo, Arroyo, & Obando, 2016).

There is little information available to precisely determine the original motivation to create the corridor. Technical documents suggest that these causes vary greatly depending on the stakeholder worldviews. The Costa Rican historical context that produced biological corridors as a reliable environmental solution might shed some light on the question of its creation. Costa Rica has over 37 biological corridors institutionalized in the National Program for Biological Corridors. Mainly seeking to establish protected areas and connectivity, corridors were promoted as a strategy for the conservation of biological biodiversity for the benefit of society (Acevedo et al., 2016; Alvarado et al., 2016). This promotion happened as a direct result of the creation of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor in 1997 (Alvarado et al., 2016). The Mesoamerican corridor was a regional plan specifically designed to expand the idea of conservation from that of “no-use protected areas,” to include sustainable development. It greatly emphasized the sustainable use of resources and ecosystem services as a means to improve the livelihood of socially vulnerable inhabitants in rural areas rich in natural resources (Alvarado et al., 2016;

Finley-Brook, 2007; Miller et al., 2001). With the Mesoamerican Corridor came a break from the concept of no use to embracement of market-based solutions that somewhat permeated the design and establishment of biological corridors in Costa Rica (Finley-Brook, 2007; Miller et al., 2001). This context indeed informed the creation of the ASBC.