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chapter 21 Threats to the Conservation of Tropical Dry Forest in Costa Rica Mauricio Quesada and Kathryn E. Stoner Approximately 550,000 km2 of tropical dry forest covered the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica at the time that the Spaniards arrived . Today less than 2 percent of this forest remains (Janzen 1988), mostly in Mexico (Trejo and Dirzo 2000). It has been estimated that the only protected sites of tropical dry forest in Mesoamerica that are large enough to possibly sustain dry-forest ecosystems are Parque Nacional Santa Rosa and Parque Nacional Palo Verde in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, and the ChamelaCuixmala Biosphere Reserve in Jalisco, Mexico (Hartshorn 1988). Tropical dry forests in Costa Rica have almost disappeared. The total area of original dry forest in Costa Rica estimated before 1940 was approximately 400,000 ha (8% of the national territory), and by 1950 this area was reduced to 40,200 ha (Sader and Joyce 1988). The most recent Landsat TM satellite image analysis estimates that less than 0.1 percent of tropical dry forest remains in Costa Rica and recognizes this habitat as the most endangered within the country (Sánchez-Azofeifa 1997). Eleven different conservation areas are recognized in Costa Rica today, and only two of these contain the ten national parks and reserves that protect tropical dry forest (Blanco and Mata 1994). Parque Nacional Guanacaste in the Guanacaste Conservation Area protects approximately 50,000 ha, and Parque Nacional Palo Verde and Reserva Biológica Lomas Barbudal in the Tempisque Conservation Area protect an additional 20,000 ha. In this chapter we discuss the major factors that have affected tropical dry forests in Costa Rica and some of the effects that they have had on this ecosystem. We also discuss current management practices used by the Tempisque Conservation Area in Parque Nacional Palo Verde and Reserva Biológica Lomas Barbudal that may threaten the preservation of tropical dry forests. 266 Finally, we present some recommendations for the future successful conservation of tropical dry forest. CAUSES OF DRY-FOREST CONVERSION IN COSTA RICA CATTLE Deforestation because of the cattle industry has been the main cause of tropical forest destruction throughout Mexico and Central America (Quesada-López-Calleja1974;Toledo1992;Maass 1995). Costa Rica is no exception, with the cattle industry contributing more to deforestation in the period before 1980 than all other economic activities combined including commercial logging (Lehmann 1992). On a countrywide basis, by 1973 more than one-third of the country’s territory consisted of cattle pastures (QuesadaL ópez-Calleja 1974; Lehmann 1992). The area of the country dedicated to pasture increased from 630,000 ha in 1950 to more than 2 million ha in 1994 (IICA 1995). The first cattle ranch was founded in Guanacaste in the late 1500s (Janzen 1986), and extensive cattle ranches were established in this dry-forest area as early as 1800 (Boucher et al. 1983). The oldest post-Hispanic settlements in the dry forest were established along the Tempisque River Basin in Guanacaste with subsequent development of pastures and agriculture in this region. Data obtained from aerial photographs and satellite images indicate that approximately 46 percent (115,000 ha) of this region consisted of pastures by the mid-1950s (Maldonado et al. 1995). Several factors affected the continued growth of the cattle industry in northern Costa Rica during the twentieth century. The construction of the Pan American Highway in the 1950s allowed easy access to the entire country, facilitating both settlement and marketing in the rest of Guanacaste (Williams 1986). Furthermore, expansion of the cattle industry was a major goal of the Costa Rican government in the 1950s in order to diversify export products. The exportation of live cattle began in 1954 and was soon replaced by the exportation of refrigerated beef (Hall 1985). The cattle business continued to grow as the government contributed with national and international credits to support the industry financially . It has been estimated that approximately 50 percent of all agricultural credit went to cattle in the early 1970s (Quesada-López-Calleja 1974; Leonard 1987). The Nicoya Peninsula and the land surrounding Liberia (the capital of Guanacaste) increased the area dedicated to pastures 151 percent from 1979 to 1992 as a result of economic incentives given to cattle owners (Canet et al. 1996). In addition to forest destruction, another impact of the cattle industry on tropical dry forests is caused by the use of fire to maintain open pastures . Fire has been one of the single most...

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