The fertility plateau in Costa Rica: a review of causes and remedies

Costa Rica achieved a substantial reduction in its overall fertility rate in a very short period of time. The halving of the fertility rate which occurred in less than ten years in Costa Rica transpired over the course of 100 years in France and 170 in Sweden. The level of contraceptive use in Costa Rica is twice that in other Central American nations. The authors summarize the recent demographic history of Costa Rica and review factors influencing its remarkable fertility decline. They then discuss possible explanations for the ensuing fertility plateau and conclude by suggesting strategies for affecting a further decrease in fertility rates. With regard to the reasons for the fertility plateau, cultural factors, socioeconomic factors, declining government commitment and family planning services, education, and the Church are considered. To reduce the level of fertility even further, the authors recommend that the government adopt a clear population policy which could serve as a basis for other changes such as increased support of family planning programs, improvements in the educational system, increased women's status and employment opportunities, and extensive education in schools and through the mass media on the socioeconomic and environmental effects of overpopulation. It is important to increase Costa Ricans' understanding of the negative impacts of continued population growth and the role of individual family planning decisions in that growth.     

Forest Protection and Reforestation in Costa Rica: Evaluation of a Clean Development Mechanism Prototype

/ Costa Rica has recently established a program that provides funds for reforestation and forest protection on private lands, partly through the sale of carbon certificates to industrialized countries. Countries purchasing these carbon offsets hope one day to receive credit against their own commitments to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Costa Rica has used the proceeds of the sale of carbon offsets to Norway to help finance this forest incentive program, called the Private Forestry Project, which pays thousands of participants to reforest or protect forest on their lands. The Private Forestry Project is accompanied by a monitoring program conducted by Costa Rican forest engineers that seeks to determine net carbon storage accomplished on these lands each year. The Private Forestry Project, which is officially registered as an Activity Implemented Jointly, is a possible model for bundled projects funded by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It also serves as an interesting example for the CDM because it was designed by a developing country host-not by an industrialized country investor. Accordingly, it reflects the particular "sustainable development" objectives of the host country or at least the host planners. Early experience in implementing the Private Forestry Project is evaluated in light of the main objectives of the CDM and its precursor-Activities Implemented Jointly. It is concluded that the project appears to meet the criteria of global cost-effectiveness and financing from non-ODA sources. The sustainable development implications of the project are specific to the region and would not necessarily match the ideals of all investing and developing countries. The project may be seen to achieve additional greenhouse gas abatement when compared against some (although not all) baselines.     

Water management problems in economies in transition

Ambitious programmes of reform in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are threatened by a serious deterioration of the environment. Large-scale damage of the natural environment in many forms, including water pollution has created development barriers which adversely affect the living conditions of current and future generations. Despite similar patterns of environmental policy in the CEE countries compared with their Western counterparts, neither environmental legislation nor economic incentives have produced any significant improvement in water quality over the last 10–20 years. For that very reason in the transition period, it is necessary to identify existing deficiencies in the system and to build up a mixed system of new institutions of water management, more realistic legislation with a strong enforcement system, and market based incentives for water conservation and protection against pollution.     

Watershed protection: Capturing the benefits of nature's water supply services

Healthy watersheds provide valuable services to society, including the supply and purification of fresh water. Because these natural ecosystem services lie outside the traditional domain of commercial markets, they are undervalued and underprotected. With population and development pressures leading to the rapid modification of watershed lands, valuable hydrological services are being lost, which poses risks to the quality and cost of drinking water and the reliability of water supplies. Increasing the scale and scope of programmes to protect hydrological services requires policies that harmonize land uses in watersheds with the provision of these important natural services. This article summarizes key attributes of hydrological services and their economic benefits; presents a spectrum of institutional mechanisms for safeguarding those services; discusses programmes in Quito (Ecuador), Costa Rica and New York City; and offers some lessons learned and recommendations for achieving higher levels of watershed protection.     

Can developing countries benefit from innovative pricing in the power sector?

This study explores electricity pricing as a demand-side management (DSM) strategy, looking to the developed country experience for insights into the types of approaches currently used, their effects, and the direction in which electricity pricing is headed. The discussion should be especially useful for electric utilities in developing countries that are exploring alternatives to capacity expansion to meet current and future electric power demand. For these electric utilities, demand-side options are especially important under today's conditions in which the capital cost of new generating capacity is increasing rapidly, international funds for expanding power sectors are not expected to be sufficient for meeting projected capacity needs and environmental concerns over fossil fuel emissions have raised new questions about constructing thermal power plants.     

Research needs for improving biofuel burning cookstove technologies

The contribution of the household biofuel cooking energy system in developing countries to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases is significant and a potential exists to halve this contribution cost-effectively. A review of past programmes aimed at disseminating stoves designed to reduce fuel consumption and exposures shows these programmes to have been only partially successful. If future programmes are to achieve their intended societal objectives and satisfy consumer requirements, research on designing improved stoves with lower emissions is critical. Integrated research will also be required on other related aspects, such as measurements of emissions from various stove-biofuel combinations, and on developing improved procedures for testing, evaluation and dissemination. The multiple benefits that can accrue from these programmes makes continuing and increased investment of efforts worthwhile.     

What Makes Them Pay? Values of Volunteer Tourists Working for Sea Turtle Conservation

As charismatic mega-fauna, sea turtles attract many volunteers to conservation programs. This article examines the ways in which volunteers value sea turtles, in the specific context of volunteers working with the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. The complexity of volunteer values is explored using a qualitative approach. In-depth interviews with 31 volunteers were conducted in July of 1999 and 2000. Interviews probed, among other things, interest in sea turtles and their conservation, motives for participating, and the most gratifying parts of their volunteer experience. Results show that volunteers hold multiple and complex values for sea turtles, but particular values dominate. Results have implications for understanding human–environment relations and the emerging study of volunteer tourism. There are also management implications for volunteer programs hoping to attract participants.     

Automated energy management in distributed electricity systems: An EEPOS approach

The increasing capacity of distributed electricity generation brings new challenges in maintaining a high security and quality of electricity supply. New techniques are required for grid support and power balance. The highest potential for these techniques is to be found on the part of the electricity distribution grid.

This article addresses this potential and presents the EEPOS project’s approach to the automated management of flexible electrical loads in neighborhoods. The management goals are (i) maximum utilization of distributed generation in the local grid, (ii) peak load shaving/congestion management, and (iii) reduction of electricity distribution losses. Contribution to the power balance is considered by applying two-tariff pricing for electricity.

The presented approach to energy management is tested in a hypothetical sensitivity analysis of a distribution feeder with 10 households and 10 photovoltaic (PV) plants with an average daily consumption of electricity of 4.54 kWh per household and a peak PV panel output of 0.38 kW per plant. Energy management shows efficient performance at relatively low capacities of flexible load. At a flexible load capacity of 2.5% (of the average daily electricity consumption), PV generation surplus is compensated by 34–100% depending on solar irradiance. Peak load is reduced by 30% on average. The article also presents the load shifting effect on electricity distribution losses and electricity costs for the grid user.     

Evaluation model for developing,implementing, and assessing conservation education programs: Examples from Belize and Costa Rica

Evaluation of conservation education programs can: (1) provide accountability in demonstrating a program's worth, (2) offer an opportunity for receiving feedback and improving programs, (3) further our understanding of the process of program development, and (4) promote conservation education by substantiating claims about its benefits. The Planning-Process-Product systems evaluation model provides feedback needed for making decisions about the development, implementation, and outcome of a program. Planning evaluation was useful in assessing the needs, goals, opportunities, and constraints of a number of programs in Costa Rica and Belize, such as a forestry education project and a zoo outreach program. It provided a basis for making planning decisions incorporating specific objectives, such as the reforestation of a region or a change in knowledge and attitudes in program participants. Process evaluation provided a Costa Rican sustainable development program with feedback during its implementation and enabled it to modify and improve its newsletter for local farmers and its ecology classes for school children. Product evaluation assessed project accomplishments, such as the $700,000 raised by the Children's Rainforest group and the 20 miles of riparian land under conservation management as part of the Belize Community Baboon Sanctuary project. Outcomes are compared with the programs original monetary or land management objectives to determine the success of the programs and to provide feedback for improvement.     

The African electric power sector in the context of an acute financial crisis

There has been a sharp downturn in the building of electricity production and distribution facilities in sub-Saharan Africa due to economic and financial constraints. In part this was due to the steady decline in GDP in sub-Saharan Africa throughout the 1980s. The slackening growth of demand and the continuing decline in existing generating capacity have led to a shift in emphasis towards the restructuring of electricity companies, management improvements and the rehabilitation of existing plants rather than new investment in production and distribution facilities. Nevertheless, valid doubts remain as to the ability of the African electricity sector to mobilize sufficient resources in the medium term to ensure its development.     

The role of electricity in sustainable development

Current projections estimating world population growth read in conjunction with corresponding projections of increased world energy consumption, point to electricity as the cleaner fuel of the future, especially because of its high efficiency and low levels of pollution. Due mostly to the fact that the electrical end-use devices are considerably more efficient than those using other forms of energy, most developed countries show decreasing curves of energy intensity as technologies become more sophisticated and shift over to increased reliance on electricity. It is therefore argued in this article that a gradual shift away from fossil fuels to electricity is a promising possibility to bring down global air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases to acceptable levels. Examples are given of greater efficiency achieved by electrification. Overall gains in energy efficiency from the change over from fossil fuels to electricity, are possible even in situations where the electricity is generated by fossil fuel combustion, despite the loss of primary energy in the conversion process. The article also presents electricity generating projects designed for developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The generation of electricity from the combustion of renewable sources (biomass waste), fossil fuels, and other innovative methods are outlined.     

Recovery of trailside vegetation from trampling in a tropical rain forest

Practically no information exists on the impact of human trampling on tropical rain forest vegetation. We studied three trails with varying periods of use and recovery in a tropical rain forest in Costa Rica. Human impact on trailside plants was curvilinearly related to use, as found by other workers in temperate zone vegetation. Recovery in a period of two years and eight months had been rapid, and herbs and seedlings were more abundant along the recovering trail than in undisturbed forest. The results imply that a shifting mosaic of trails, analogous to the mosaic created by light gaps, may be the best management technique to minimize the impact of human visitors in tropical rain forests.     

Structuring international development decisions: confronting trade-offs between land use and community development in Costa Rica

For more than half a century, research and practice in international development has focused on improving the quality of life of people living in developing regions of the world. Recently, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have recognized the need to blend insights from experts and community stakeholders in development decisions. Research in the decision sciences tells us that these kinds of multiparty and multiattribute decisions are extremely challenging. However, recent experience using structured decision-making (SDM) approaches suggests that the quality of both expert and stakeholder input, and resulting decisions, can be improved by ensuring that people address a series of basic principles relating to identifying objectives and their associated attributes, estimating the consequences of proposed actions, and directly confronting trade-offs that arise during the evaluation of management alternatives. In this paper, we provide an overview of SDM and then discuss a research initiative aimed at applying the approach to a pressing international development problem in rural Costa Rica: management of the lucrative but also environmentally destructive pineapple industry. The objectives of this research were twofold: First, we sought to help inform policy decisions by eliciting land management preferences regarding the pineapple industry from people living in communities surrounding plantations. Second, we evaluated the effectiveness of the SDM approach in a developing community context.     

Measuring conservation success beyond the traditional biological criteria: the case of conservation projects in Costa Rica,Mekong Valley,and Cameroon

Traditionally, the criteria used to measure conservation success or failure are based on biological factors. Biological factors include changes in the amount of targeted conserved species, biodiversity, and total area conserved. However, conservation efforts are not simply a matter of biological concern; environmental, political, social, and conflict pressures on different scales (ranging from local to global) also have strong influences on the outcome of conservation. These other factors can either pose threats to or enhance conservation, but are not addressed by current criteria. Using a proposed holistic rubric that includes interdisciplinary fields, this paper examines a set of conservation factors on different scales – ranging from local to global – to determine their importance in conservation. The paper analyses positive factor influences with more successful conservation and negative factor influences with less successful, or failed, conservation attempts. Neutral and non‐applicable factor influences are also identified, defined, and ranked as a standardization mechanism. The determination of success changed when the holistic rubric was applied to conservation projects in Costa Rica, Mekong Valley, and Cameroon. In the Costa Rica case study, conservation success for Guanacaste and Talamanca national parks is rated ‘moderately low’. In the case of Mekong Valley, conservation success is rated ‘low’ for Lower Mekong, ‘moderately low’ for Greater Annamites, and ‘low’ for Phong Nha‐Ke Bang national parks. Cameroon's Congo Basin and Sangha Tri‐National conservation efforts are both rated ‘low’, while Dja Faunal is rated ‘very low’. We conclude that if conservation efforts are to attain a high level of success, the strategy for global conservation must move away from the traditional biological approach, which focuses mainly on biological concerns, and embrace a holistic approach, which in addition to biological concerns, addresses environmental, political, social, and conflict pressures, which have strong influences on the outcomes of conservation.     

The Integration of a Genetic Programming-Based Feature Optimizer With Fisher Criterion and Pattern Recognition Techniques to Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring for Load Identification

Identification of electricity energy consumption on individual household appliances used in a smart house is the first important step for making the use and conservation of electricity energy more efficient. In the past, Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) techniques, which are part of smart grid techniques realized to improve electricity energy usage efficiency, have been developed to identify individual appliances with avoiding installing many smart meters for appliances in a field. In this paper, a new NILM technique that integrates an efficient Genetic Programming (GP)-based feature optimizer with pattern recognition techniques is proposed to identify which appliance is being turned on or off. The proposed GP-based feature optimizer with Fisher criterion is used to generate a more efficient feature than original potential transient features extracted from captured transient response of household appliances through analysis of NILM. The new feature generated by GP is used by pattern recognition techniques as load identifiers for load identification. The load identifiers used and compared in this paper include k-Nearest-Neighbor Rule, Back-Propagation Artificial Neural Network, and Learning Vector Quantization. Experiments are conducted under different single-load and multiple-load operation circumstances at different actual experimental environments with small disturbances. As shown from the experimental results, the proposed is confirmed to be feasible and usable.     

基于能值分析的苏州市城市生态系统可持续发展评估

本文利用能值分析的方法,分析了苏州城市生态系统的各种生态流,并建立了苏州城市生态系统可持续发展能值评价指标体系,评估其可持续发展程度,并对其能值指标的发展进行了预测。研究结果显示,2007年苏州市系统利用总能值达到616.71×1021sej,能值自给率仅为35.5%,环境负载率达到61.67。与其他国家和地区能值指标对比得出,苏州市是一个高度外向型生态经济系统,其系统的发展高度依赖于外界资源的输入,面对现在不稳定的世界经济发展和外部环境,苏州市必须加大系统自身的供给能力,提高系统自身的稳定性;发展循环经济,降低系统环境负载率;加强高科技和人才投入,提高系统可持续发展潜力。     

Performance measurement for incineration plants using multi-activity network data envelopment analysis: The case of Taiwan

This study proposes the use of multi-activity network data envelopment analysis to appraise how incineration plants in Taiwan perform. Sample data from 2006 is used to examine the trade-offs between efficiency enhancement and pollution abatement. The respective efficiencies of the waste treatment and electricity generation are also assessed in a unified framework. The empirical results indicate that it is more important to improve the efficiency of waste treatment activity than of electricity generation activity in order to enhance the overall performance of Taiwan's incinerators. Since ownership, location and length of operations do not in general affect their performance, any improvement has to come from the careful monitoring of each process of the waste treatment operations. Furthermore, given that the policy in Taiwan has moved away from incineration to recycling, the problem of an over-supply of incinerators may become apparent in the near future. Our results indicate that the availability of capacity size may be an important factor when policy-makers consider whether to close down some existing incinerators.     

Contrasting nitrate adsorption in Andisols of two coffee plantations in Costa Rica

Fertilizer use in coffee plantations is a suspected cause of rising ground water nitrate concentrations in the ground water-dependent Central Valley of Costa Rica. Nitrate adsorption was evaluated beneath two coffee (Coffea arabica L.) plantations in the Central Valley. Previous work at one site had identified unsaturated zone nitrate retardation relative to a tritium tracer. Differences in nitrate adsorption were assessed in cores to 4 m depth in Andisols at this and one other plantation using differences in KCl- and water-extractable nitrate as an index. Significant adsorption was confirmed at the site of the previous tracer test, but not at the second site. Anion exchange capacity, X-ray diffraction data, extractable Al and Si, and soil pH in NaF corroborated that differences in adsorption characteristics were related to subtle differences in clay mineralogy. Soils at the site with significant nitrate adsorption showed an Al-rich allophane clay content compared with a more weathered, Si-rich allophane and halloysite clay mineral content at the site with negligible adsorption. At the site with significant nitrate adsorption, nitrate occupied less than 10% of the total anion adsorption capacity, suggesting that adsorption may provide long-term potential for mitigation or delay of nitrate leaching. Evaluation of nitrate sorption potential of soil at local and landscape scales would be useful in development of nitrogen management practices to reduce nitrate leaching to ground water.     

Assessing and managing the sociocultural impacts of ecotourism: revisiting the Santa Elena rainforest project

Summary This paper outlines the second phase of an ecotourism project undertaken in the Santa Elena community, in the Monteverde region of Costa Rica. The community originally established a rainforest reserve with the help of Youth Challenge International in an attempt to provide a wider economic base and employment for the area. The project has been successful in the first phase in that it is now drawing an annual income of US$40 000 and it employs guides and management from the local community. In terms of the underlying principles usually aligned with ecotourism it has been successful but it is now necessary to evaluate the impacts this project is having on the community. The second phase of the project was to assess the sociocultural impacts of ecotourism on that community and the paper outlines this phase.Stephen Wearing is a lecturer in the School of Leisure and Tourism Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. He lectures and consults in the area of tourism and environmental planning, and parks and protected area management. His particular interest is in ecotourism projects with local communities and he has spent much of the last 4 years working on the Santa Elena Project. He is linked with Youth Challenge International and people interested in becoming involved or looking for assistance with community projects of this nature can contact him at the above address. Libby Larson recently graduated with a BA in Leisure Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, focusing on social sciences in natural resource management. She has also worked in Costa Rica with Youth Challenge International and is particularly interested in ecotourism.     

Baseline assessment for environmental services payments from satellite imagery: a case study from Costa Rica and Mexico

In this study we evaluate the accuracy of four global and regional forest cover assessments (MODIS, IGBP, GLC2000, PROARCA) as tools for baseline estimation. We conduct this research at the national scale for Costa Rica and for two tropical dry forest study sites in Costa Rica (Santa Rosa) and Mexico (Chamela-Cuixmala). We found that at the national level, the total forest cover accuracy of the four land cover maps was inflated due to an overestimation of forest in areas with an evergreen canopy. However, the four maps greatly underestimated the extent of the deciduous forest (dry forest); an ecosystem that faces high deforestation pressure and poses complications to the mapping of its extent from remotely sensed data. For the tropical dry forest sites, all maps have low forest cover accuracies (mean for Santa Rosa: 27%; mean for Chamela-Cuixmala: 56%). This has implications for policy implementation.