Photo: Eelco Bohtilingk | Unsplash
The Osa Peninsula on Costa Rica’s west coast occupies just 0.001 percent of the planet’s surface area, yet is home to an estimated 2.5 percent of all the biodiversity in the world. Previously, farmers in the region cleared forests to plant crops or to create pastures for cattle. Now farmers can earn money per hectare per year for having reforesting their land. “For us, it has been important because, before, we protected [the forests], we looked after them, but we didn’t receive anything for it,” says Lineth Picado Mena, a rural farmer living on the peninsula and participant in the government’s Payments for Environmental Services (PES) program. “Now we can support ourselves with what we have.”
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