Beyond PES and REDD+: Costa Rica on the way to climate-smart landscape management?

Costa Rica has a strong international reputation for conservation and sustainable management of forests, including through its national payments for environmental services (PES) system and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). However, to be able to take those achievements to the next level, new approaches need to be developed that integrate agriculture and environmental politics, e.g., to foster climate-smart landscape management. This would be in line with the idea of a green transformation as a necessary contribution to bring human social-ecological action back within planetary boundaries. We start from a general conceptualization of a green transformation and its potential drivers, then analyze the basis and prospects for such developments by providing a review of the country’s forest politics, including a mapping of relevant stakeholders that have been influential in designing and implementing the national PES and REDD+ approaches. Based on original empirical analysis that was conducted throughout 2017, we further analyze recent institutional developments of setting up a cross-sectoral policy for agriculture and environment as part of a broader landscape management approach, including the opportunities and challenges that might arise with a view to realizing this idea on the ground.