COMMENTARY
Economic considerations of privately owned parks
Jeffrey A. Langholz
a,*, James P. Lassoie
b, David Lee
c, Duane Chapman
caProgram in International En6ironmental Policy,Monterey Institute of International Studies,MIIS/IEP,425 Van Buren St., Monterey,CA 93940, USA
bDepartment of Natural Resources,Cornell Uni6ersity,Ithaca,NY, USA
cDepartment of Agricultural,Resource,and Managerial Economics,Cornell Uni6ersity,Ithaca,NY, USA
Received 20 January 1999; received in revised form 8 July 1999; accepted 27 October 1999
Abstract
Privately owned parks continue to proliferate worldwide. Their rapid expansion represents an important yet little understood private sector incursion into an activity long dominated by governments. This paper examines economic issues surrounding establishment and operation of privately owned natural areas. We interviewed owners of 68 private parks in Costa Rica to learn more about reserves’ underlying economics. Key findings include: (1) private parks require an expanded definition of optimal reserve size — one in which quality of protection takes precedence over quantity of land protected; (2) profit was a powerful motivator behind private reserve operation, even though many owners did not rely on their reserves for revenue generation; and (3) an important non-market value of private parks was the high bequest value owners placed on them. Last, we identify key information gaps that resource economists can help fill regarding this increasingly popular conservation tool. The analysis contributes to our understanding of private reserves on both theoretical and empirical levels. It should be of interest wherever biodiversity remains threatened, wherever new conservation partners are being sought, and wherever private reserves are being established, which includes most of the industrialized and developing world. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Conservation; Ecotourism; Private parks; Protected areas; Stewardship
www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon
1. Introduction
The alarming pace of habitat destruction neces-sitates development of innovative approaches for
in situ biodiversity conservation (e.g. Western and Pearl, 1989; Wilson, 1989; McNeely et al., 1990). Evidence suggests that current approaches to bio-diversity protection are more difficult and less successful than was originally hoped (Wells and Brandon, 1992; Kramer et al., 1997; Langholz, 1999b). Even worse, a shockingly high percentage * Corresponding author.
E-mail address:jeff.langholz@miis.edu (J.A. Langholz)
of parks are underprotected, with many existing on paper only (Machlis and Tichnell, 1985; Amend and Amend, 1992; Van Schaik et al., 1997; Brandon et al., 1998). Finally, even if public parks were well protected, they still would leave more than 93% of the world’s land area unpro-tected (Western et al., 1993; World Resources Institute et al., 1998). It is clear we need to explore new conservation strategies for protecting vast amounts of the land that will never be a public park. As Western (1989) notes, ‘‘land be-yond parks is the best hope and biggest chal-lenge’’ for conservation.
One option beyond public parks is the privately owned nature reserve. Private nature reserves have been quietly proliferating throughout the world, yet little is known about them. Authors have begun to mention their existence, but have provided little detail (e.g. Adams, 1962; Zube and Busch, 1990; Barborak, 1995; Murray, 1995; Bor-rini-Feyerabend, 1996; Langholz, 1996b; Schelhas and Greenberg, 1996; Uphoff and Langholz, 1998). A few authors have done case studies high-lighting various aspects of specific reserves (e.g. Horwich, 1990; Glick and Orejuela, 1991; Echev-erria et al., 1995; Alyward et al., 1996; Brandon, 1996; Wearing and Larsen, 1996; Yu et al., 1997). On the international scale, three researchers have conducted mail surveys on private reserves, each designed to confirm and build upon previous
find-ings (Alderman, 1994; Langholz, 1996a;
Mesquita, 1999). The 63 reserves in Alderman’s study, for example, were protecting more than one million hectares of ecologically valuable habi-tat. Langholz (1999a) has provided a proposed category system for private reserves worldwide that captures their immense diversity. The typol-ogy includes NGO-owned reserves such as those owned by The Nature Conservancy, as well as nine other distinct types of private reserves. The study also sheds light on varying levels of ‘protec-tion’ provided by reserves. Occupying one ex-treme, for example, were strict nature reserves where all forms of human disturbance were pro-hibited. Such reserves typically enjoyed legal recognition as wildnerness areas and corre-sponded to IUCN Category IA and IB protected areas. On the other extreme were areas devoted
primarily to human activity such as extraction of food, fiber, and fuel. The largest group of private reserves, however, existed between the two ex-tremes, pursuing biodiversity objectives in con-junction with relatively non-consumptive human activity such as ecotourism (IUCN Category IV). Additional studies have confirmed the private sector’s increasingly important role in biodiversity conservation (Edwards, 1995; Merrifield, 1996).
Even the World Conservation Union has
launched projects to learn more about this rela-tively new conservation tool. In effect, what Dixon and Sherman (1990) called ‘‘...a small but important development in protected area manage-ment’’ a few short years ago has evolved into a major new direction in conservation.
Despite the sudden proliferation of private re-serves, and studies of them, we still know very little. Most articles mention them only briefly. Worse, we know practically nothing of their un-derlying economics. Granted, economists have an-alyzed private provision of various goods and services, including prisons, police protection, garbage collection, schools, and so on (e.g. Shi-chor, 1995; Schmidt, 1996; Vickers and Yarrow, 1988), and they have recently started making con-tributions to the protected areas literature in gen-eral (e.g. Dixon and Sherman, 1990; Pearce and Moran, 1994; Barbier et al., 1995). Economists have yet, however, to contribute to the emerging private parks phenomenon. Given limited public resources available for conservation, and growing interest in private sector initiatives, it is impera-tive that we begin to explore key economic issues surrounding privately owned protected areas.
Our overall intent is to provide much needed information and perspective on this important new conservation trend in terms of both theory and practice. Hopefully, the discussion will also entice other researchers to focus attention on private parks, leading to additional and deeper
economic analyses. Finally, the information
should be useful wherever biodiversity remains threatened, wherever conservationists are looking for new partners, and wherever private reserves are being established, which includes most of the industrialized and developing world.
2. Theoretical framework
Bennett (1995) offers a tripartite theoretical jus-tification for private sector conservation initia-tives. Reasons include ameliorating a government failure (i.e. compensating for government’s appar-ent undersupply of protected areas), reducing free-riding (i.e. not ‘crowding out’ altruistic en-deavors), and encouraging joint supply of public goods (i.e. landowners supplying indirect, non-use values that benefit society at large).
Economists have started paying increased at-tention to the myriad non-market values provided by protected areas in addition to traditional mar-ket values. A formula for calculating the total value of a park appears in Fig. 1. Note that passive or non-use values are an important part of the equation, and that provision of these benefits can come not just from state-owned parks, but from private ones as well. In the equation, be-quest value represents the value of keeping a resource intact for one’s heirs (Krutilla, 1967). Option value refers to the value of the option to make use of the resource in the future (Weisbrod, 1964). Quasi-option value is the value of the future information protected by preserving a re-source (Arrow and Fisher, 1974; Henry, 1974; Fisher and Hanemann, 1983). Existence value em-bodies the value conferred by assuring the sur-vival of a resource (Krutilla, 1967; Pearce and Turner, 1990).
Given this suite of public and private benefits, how might landowners decide how much land to protect? Fig. 2 shows how landowners might allo-cate resources. The figure is derived from two sources in particular (Edwards, 1995; Chapman, 1997), and is based on the assumption that a producer is willing to produce to the point at which the marginal cost of provision of one extra unit is equal to the marginal benefit derived from one extra unit. If landowners take into account
only their own benefits (MBL), rather than the
marginal benefit to society (MBS), they will
pro-tect QL, which falls short of the area society
would want protected (QS). On a theoretical level,
the global proliferation of conservation incentive programs represents society’s attempt to compen-sate landowners for this externality.
Fig. 2. Costs and benefits of protecting natural areas on private lands.
minimum area of QM1, whereas a jaguar might
require a minimum of QM2 (Fig. 2). Even small
private reserves, therefore, may be sufficiently large to maintain viable populations of certain species. What matters most are management objectives and connectivity to other protected ar-eas.
Finally, landowner decisions concerning the amount of land to protect do not occur in a vacuum and can be affected by larger trends. This is especially true for reserves that have an eco-tourism business. For example, ecoeco-tourism re-serves can be in what Yu et al. (1997) described as a classic free rider situation. Given the small amount of land needed to stage a hike in the woods, and the fact that most tourists are inca-pable of recognizing ecological damage in a re-serve, owners do not really need to maintain a large or ecologically intact park. Instead, they can rely on a country’s conservation reputation to bring a steady stream of paying visitors, regard-less of conditions in their own reserves.
3. Methods
Data were collected by the first author during 14 months of fieldwork in Costa Rica, from June 1997 to August 1998. The fieldwork was part of a larger study on private reserves, including their types, ownership patterns, social implications, spatial issues, objectives, and experience with a government incentives program. Costa Rica was selected as the country to study for its reputation as a conservation innovator, for its strong legal support for ownership and protection of private land, and because previous studies have shown it to be a location where private reserves are flour-ishing. For the purposes of this study, private reserves were defined as any land of twenty hectares or more that was not owned by a govern-ment entity, and was managed with the intent of preserving the land in a mostly undeveloped state. When the study began, no comprehensive list of private reserves in Costa Rica existed. We devoted 2 months to developing such a list, drawing to-gether records from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources.
The size of the externality for the landowner
(MBS minus MBL) is typically greater than that
depicted in Fig. 2. Marginal benefits consist not just of the revenue reserve owners might receive from their natural areas through ecotourism, har-vesting forest products, and other revenue pro-ducing activities, but also from non-market values. Thus, the marginal benefit curve can be subdivided to differentiate market income from
other benefits. The MRL curve in Fig. 2 shows
this relationship, representing the market income
earned by a private nature reserve. The
landowner, then, has the added externality pre-sented by his or her non-monetary benefits of having a nature reserve. The size of this additional
externality (MBL minus MRL) depends on the
value the owner places on non-market benefits, which are typically related to management
objec-tives. For example, MRL for a reserve owner
focused on generating profits would be higher than that of an owner of a non-profit reserve.
The minimum amount of land needed for eco-logical viability also varies. We have shown how a landowner decides how much land to protect, and that this area is smaller than what society would like to see. But like the externality faced by re-serve owners, minimum size requirements also can differ. Management goals affect not just the exter-nality, but also the amount of land needed. The
amount of land protected (QL) may be adequate
Primary data collection consisted of a struc-tured survey implemented during face-to-face in-terviews with 68 reserve owners. Table 1 lists these reserves, including their locations and sizes. Sup-plemental information reserves’ levels of protec-tion and land uses appear in Langholz (1999a) . The survey included a combination of closed and open-ended questions, thus soliciting not just quantitative data for comparisons across reserves, but also detailed qualitative information for added depth. Conducting the survey face-to-face provided control over who represented each re-serve, overcame illiteracy obstacles, and bypassed an often-unreliable postal system. It also in-creased the response rate by giving the interviewer the opportunity to work around reserve owners’ schedules, and assure them of confidentiality. Seven additional reserves participated in a pilot test. The first author conducted 57 of the inter-views (including the pilot test), and a research assistant did the remaining 18. Forty-six of the reserves were selected at random from a list of 211 suspected reserves. The remaining 22 were inten-tionally added to the sample because they formed part of the study that was exploring participation in a specific incentives program.
Interviews were conducted in Spanish or En-glish, according to the reserve owner’s preference. We tape recorded and transcribed all interviews, except for three cases where the owner requested that we not tape a portion or the entire interview. In addition to the interviews, we examined docu-ments related to the individual reserves, visually inspected the premises of 42 of them, and inter-viewed numerous local residents, government offi-cials, and conservation NGO representatives. These multiple data sources, as well as discussion of preliminary findings with key informants, pro-vided ongoing triangulation of the data (Patton, 1990).
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Rethinking optimality of nature reser6e size
In their landmark book on economics of pro-tected natural areas, Dixon and Sherman (1990)
correctly note that private parks tend to be small. Many large reserves exist, however, such as
80 000-hectare Hato Pinero in Venezuela,
270 000-hectare Pumalin in Chile, and several re-serves of over 100 000 hectares in Brazil. As described in Fig. 2, several factors influence the quantity of hectares a landowner will protect as a private park. These factors form the basis of landowner views on optimality of nature reserve size. For decades, island biogeography theory and concern for megafauna have mandated a ‘bigger is better’ approach to parks (e.g. MacArthur and Wilson, 1967, Diamond, 1975, Simberloff and Abele, 1976). Private parks, however, require an expanded notion of optimal protected area size. The 68 reserves in our study ranged in size from 20 to 22 000 hectares, but had a median of only 101 hectares. We asked landowners to comment on the size of their reserves, hoping to see if their sense of optimality matched the traditional one.
Only 3% (n=2) of reserve owners said their
reserves were ‘too large’. These owners claimed that they would be incapable of managing larger reserves, given available resources. As one owner said, ‘‘It’s too big for me to thoroughly know and
protect.’’ Another 31% of owners (n=21)
de-scribed their reserves as ‘too small’. These owners expressed concern that their reserves were inca-pable of maintaining biodiversity levels over the long-term, especially for large mammals. The
ma-jority (68%, n=44), however, considered their
reserve size to be ‘about right.’ When asked to elaborate, most park owners commented that they wanted to keep reserves at a manageable size. ‘‘If it was bigger, we’re not sure we’d have enough time to care for it,’’ said one owner. Another noted, ‘‘It could be bigger, but then would be too hard for us to control.’’ ‘‘If you’re referring to protection of biodiversity, it’s very small,’’ com-mented a third. ‘‘But if you’re referring to what we can do given our economic resources, it’s very large.
Table 1
Private nature reserve sample group
Name of reserve Region Size (hectares)
252 Southern Zone (Palmar Norte)
Agua Buena
90 Osa Peninsula (Drake Bay)
Aguila de Osa
Guanacaste (Liberia) 500
Albergue Buena Vista
Albergue Cerro Alto Talamanca Mts. (Cartago) 29
147 Albergue Monte Amuo Talamanca Mts. (Buenos Aires)
400 Talamanca Mts. (San Isidro)
Albergue Rio Savegre
Central Pacific (Orotina) 80
Arbofilia
39 Atlantic Coast (Cahuita)
Aviarios del Caribe
20
Bahia Esmerelda Osa Peninsula (Matapalo)
96 Osa Peninsula (Matapalo)
Bosque del Cabo
Cabanas Escondidas Central Pacific (Dominical) 32
41 Osa Peninsula (Drake Bay)
Cebios
Tilaran Mts. (Monteverde) 22 000 The Children’s Rainforest
839
Cobano Osa Peninsula (Puerto Jimenez)
80 Osa Peninsula (Carate)
Corcovado Lodge & Tent Camp
60 Guanacaste (Sardinal)
Costa Esmerelda
84
Curu Nicoya Peninsula (Paquera)
300 Golfo Dulce (Golfito)
Dolphin Quest
Osa Peninsula (Drake Bay) 48
Drake Bay Wilderness Camp
792 Talamanca Mts. (Buenos Aires)
Durika Biological Reserve
600
EARTH Atlantic Slope (Guapiles)
40 Tilaran Mts. (Monteverde)
Ecolodge San Luis
84 Guanacaste (Abangares)
El Barantes/La Garita
35 Mirador de San Gerardo Tilaran Mts (Monteverde)
200 Central Valley (Atenas)
Escuela C.A. de Ganaderia
35 Central Valley (Santa Ana)
Finantica
535 Puntarenas (Playa Cocal)
Finca El Cedral
Tilaran Mts. (San Ramon) 540
Ganaderia San Lorencito
47 Genesis II Cloudforest Reserve Talamanca Mountains (Cartago)
100 Hacienda La Pacifica Guanacaste (Las Canas)
42 Nicoya Peninsula (Paquera)
Hara Heinrik
Tilaran Mts. (Monteverde) 240
Heliconia
130 Nicoya Peninsula (Montezuma)
Ingalls Family
21
JadeMar Osa Peninsula (Drake Bay)
65 Central Valley (Orosi)
Kiri Forest Reserve
Reserva Tangara Sarapiqui (La Virgin) 238
200
Laguna de Lagarto Lodge
17 Las Cusingasa Atlantic Slope (Guapiles)
45 Central Pacific (Uvita)
Los Laureles
Mapache Wilderness Camp Southwest (Palmar Norte) 40
800 Marenco Biological Reserve Osa Peninsula (Drake Bay)
749 Atlantic Coast (Limon)
Pacuare/Mondoquillo
Osa Peninsula (Puerto Jimenez) 249 Platanares
Table 1 (Continued)
Name of reserve Region Size (hectares)
Portalon Central Pacific (Quepos) 420
78 Central Pacific (Dominical)
Punta Achiote
20
Punta Leona Central Pacific (Jaco)
543 Golfo Dulce (Golfito)
Rainbow Adventures Lodge
Rancho la Merced Central Pacific (Uvita) 150
36 Atlantic Slope (Turrialba)
Rancho Naturalista
Osa Peninsula (Golfito)
RHR Bancas 242
Guanacaste (Liberia)
Rincon de la Vieja Lodge 296
95 Talamanca (BriBri)
Samasati
Tilaran Mts. (Monteverde)
Reserva Santa Elena 310
1650 Central Pacific (Silencio)
Tropical America Tree Farms
101 Tiskita Jungle Lodge Golfo Dulce (Pavones)
400 Atlantic Slope (Turrialba)
Vereh-Tayyutic
Vitacura Atlantic Slope (Tortuguero) 68
100 Nicoya Peninsula (Samara)
Werner Sauter
aAlthough this reserve did not meet the 20 hectare minimum size requirement, its owner has founded a local conservation organization that is protecting 1800 additional hectares in the vicinity.
Despite this finding, several factors compound the size issue. For example, landowners no doubt face economies and diseconomies of scale. The number of park guards and other employees needed to protect a 5000-hectare reserve, for ex-ample, may be no greater than what is required to protect 4000 hectares. On the other hand, costs such as fencing, signage, and property taxes will grow in proportion to an expanding reserve.
Similarly, the status of surrounding lands can influence a reserve owner’s size decisions. Neigh-boring lands may be overly developed or too expensive to justify purchase for protection pur-poses. Likewise, adjacent lands might already be operated as protected areas, either by private landowners, or as was the case with roughly half of our study group, by the government (51.5%,
n=35). This close proximity to publicly protected
areas causes a wide variety of biological and financial costs and benefits to private nature re-serve owners, which are detailed in Langholz (1999a,b).
4.2. Market 6alue: profitability among pri6ate
reser6es
In addition to size considerations, the theoreti-cal framework also discussed how market values
vary among private reserve owners (Fig. 2). One of the most important market values of private reserves is their profitability. Previous research has shown that private nature reserves in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa can be a
profitable venture, and that their overall
profitability appears to be rising (Alderman, 1994; Langholz, 1996a,b). One private reserve, in fact, reportedly generated more revenue than all of Costa Rica’s national parks combined (Church et al., 1994). Much of this financial success can be attributed to the ecotourism boom of the last two decades. This study sought to go beyond mere profit and loss data to exploring three other
as-pects of profitability. First, we looked at
(i.e. future profit, and surrounding lands). A com-prehensive assessment of motives behind private reserves appears in Langholz (1999a).
Having profit as a motive is one thing, but actually being profitable is quite another. We also assessed, therefore, the extent to which owners believe reserves to be a profitable land use. Al-though collecting detailed financial information on each reserve was beyond the scope of this study, the data on perceived profitability were quite revealing. When asked if maintaining the natural area was a profitable use of the land,
nearly as many owners disagreed (48.5%, n=33)
as agreed (51.5%, n=35). The two groups were
also split evenly within themselves, among those ‘strongly’ or ‘mildly’ agreeing or disagreeing. The
fact that 11.8% (n=8) reserves were owned by
non-profit organizations, and that 39.7% (n=27)
hosted tourists either ‘rarely’ or ‘never,’ may ex-plain the wide discrepancy. As mentioned above, land stewardship was often a higher priority than making money.
Finally, we explored the extent to which owners depend on reserves for revenue generation. Previ-ous studies (Langholz, 1996a, Alderman, 1994) discussed the numerous ways private reserves cre-ate revenue. Given these options, do reserve own-ers in Costa Rica rely on their reserves for revenue? Results showed overall reliance on re-serves for annual income to be weak at best. Only
40% (n=27) agreed with the statement, ‘‘The
natural area is currently an important source of annual revenue.’’ Owners had strong opinions,
with 29.4% (n=20) strongly agreeing and 48.5%
(n=33) strongly disagreeing. As noted above,
many reserves were not involved in the eco-tourism industry. The number of reserves engaged in other revenue-producing activities was even
lower. For example, only 22.0 (n=15) harvested
medicinal plants from the reserve either
‘some-times’ or ‘often’. Only 16.2% (n=11) mined rocks
or sand from the reserve, and 10.3% (n=7)
uti-lized wild food plants. None harvested wildlife or sold logs. These results suggest market values tell only part of the story at private reserves.
4.3. Non-market factors: the importance of bequest 6alue
As suggested in Fig. 2 and in the preceding section, non-market values play an important role at private reserves. While the various non-market values mentioned in Fig. 1 may be similar across public and private natural areas, bequest value may particularly important at private reserves. Bequest value refers to the value of keeping a resource intact for one’s heirs (Krutilla, 1967; Barbier et al., 1995). With publicly owned parks this value is generalized across society at large. Privately owned parks, however, have a bequest value that is directly attributable to the owners’ heirs rather than to broader society. For example,
75% of owners (n=51) strongly agreed with the
statement, ‘‘Someday in the future, I would like to see a child of mine take over maintaining the
natural area.’’ Another 11.8% (n=8) mildly
Table 2
Economic factors as motivating forces behind private nature reservesa
Mean
Economic Motive Agreeing (%)
I maintain a natural area because it is a financially wise thing to do. 52.9 2.53 2.38 I maintain a natural area because it will be worth a lot of money in the future. 51.5
50.0 2.34
I maintain a natural area because it is a profitable use of the land.
2.24 42.6
I maintain a natural area because it makes the surrounding agricultural lands more productive.
1.91 33.8
I maintain a natural area because I will not have to pay taxes on that portion of my land.
1.93 I maintain a natural area because it provides a regular stream of financial revenue. 30.9
29.4
I maintain a natural area because it pays more money than any other land use, including cattle, 1.88 agriculture, or logging.
agreed with the statement, and only 13.3% (n=9) mildly or strongly disagreed.
We asked a backup question and got similar
results. More than three-fourths (76.5%, n=52)
of owners agreed with the statement, ‘‘I maintain a natural area because it will be a valuable inher-itance for my children.’’ We intentionally left the word ‘valuable’ ambiguous, letting owners define it in their own terms. Some interpreted it in a strictly financial sense, while others viewed it more broadly to include various non-market values.
As a final indicator, we asked an open-ended question on motives behind reserve establishment and operation. Bequest value figured prominently here, as well, with many reserve owners expressing a desire to save the natural area for ‘future gener-ations’. Although several spoke in general terms, other reserve owners were thinking of their own children in particular. ‘‘My kids love the bush, and I hope they stay here when I disappear. I want to leave some kind of legacy for them,’’ said one reserve owner. Another commented, ‘‘It’s for my kids. I’d like to give them a natural environ-ment. They’re young now. And when they’re older there might not be many natural areas left.’’ Assessing all of private reserves’ non-market val-ues was beyond the scope of this study. What is clear, however, is that bequest value is an espe-cially important non-market value for reserve owners.
5. Conclusions
The results point to three main conclusions. First the surge of private parks requires a broad-ened view of optimality regarding reserve size. Bigger is not necessarily better. Despite a median size of only 101 hectares, the vast majority of reserve owners were satisfied with the size of their reserves. Although private reserves are capable of being extremely large, what is most important is matching a reserve’s size to the availability of resources to manage it well. Decisions on reserve size can also be influenced by economies and diseconomies of scale, and by proximity to other protected natural areas.
Second, profitability is an important motivator for many reserves, second only to conservation-re-lated reasons. Results were mixed regarding whether or not the reserves are actually a profitable land use, with nearly as many owners agreeing as disagreeing. Finally, a majority of reserve owners do not even depend on their
re-serves for revenue generation, with 60.3% (n=41)
disagreeing that their natural area is currently an important source of revenue.
Third, while public and private parks are val-ued in many of the same ways, they may differ in at least one important respect. Private park own-ers are likely to place an especially high ‘bequest
value’ on their reserves. Eighty six percent (n=
59) of reserve owners agreed that they would like to see a child of theirs take over managing the
park some day. Additionally, 76.5% (n=52)
agreed that one of the reasons they maintain a natural area is because it will be a valuable inher-itance for their children. This desire to pass on a direct family legacy represents a previously un-documented and extremely important non-market value of private reserves.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by a National Science Foundation grant on ‘Ecological and Social Chal-lenges in Conservation’ (BIR-9113293, DBI-9602244), and by the Central America Committee of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development. Special thanks go to Marta Marin and Amos Bien at the Red Costarricense de Reservas Naturales, Juan Ro-driguez and Eduardo Madrigal Castro at
MI-NAE/SINAC, numerous colleagues at Cornell
who provided input, Brian Daly, and especially the refuge owners in Costa Rica who were so generous with their time and information.
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