The objective is to establish and capitalize a trust fund, which is anchored to the Sustainable Environmental Investment Fund (FIAS), in order to protect, preserve and conserve the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR), ensuring its financial sustainability.

The main long-term milestone to be achieved with this fund is to increase the 40 miles of the GMR. In addition, the fund will be used to develop and implement a plan for the prevention, conservation and preservation of the GMR. To achieve these milestones, three main programs were defined. However, two cross-cutting themes were identified as crucial to achieving good preservation and conservation of the GMR, namely Climate Change and Environmental Communication and Education.

The three programs are:

• Maintain and strengthen the Monitoring and Surveillance program of the GMR to protect the marine heritage;
• Guarantee the conservation of the GMR and its ecological integrity, through monitoring and research for the rational use of its environmental goods and services;
• Contribute to the development and implementation of the Emergency Plan for the GMR.

The reasons that prompted the process of updating the fee were:

• 20 years without updating the value of the tourist operation patent fee:
• It was derisory compared to the income that tourism operators receive;
• The cost of administration and management of the reserve where users benefit from its environmental services;

Relevant aspects of the agreement reached to update the fee:

• Sociabilization with the tourism sector for payment agreements;
• 4-year negotiation process
• Different types of negotiations (larger and smaller depending on the type of tourism);
• The value is updated each year based on the unified basic salary SBU in force in Ecuador, the formula multiplies the Net Registration Tonnage of the vessel by 80% of the SBU;
• Payment facilities to the operator, i.e. the value can be paid in three installments.
• The Reserve has optimized its systems to make the collection order online and payment through bank transfers.
• Smaller vessels pay less
• The state charged 492,000 USD for 162 tourist vessels, with the increase the charge will be progressive, in 2018 will be collected 1'902,847 USD; in 2019 2'885,540 USD; and from 2020 onwards 3'915,312 USD.

FHA support local farmers in beekeeping business through conservation agreements. They use generated income to feed their families and to buy wire to fence their pastures to prevent cows from entering the forest.

We support 10 local cooperatives in capacity building and improving their products; and three of them are supported in eco-tourism development. They use income to buy alternatives of what they were collecting from the forest.

10 of our 12 employees are from local villages. The income they earn helps them to improve their families’ livelihoods and also helps them, families and neighbors to change the attitudes towards the forest conservation.

 The active contribution from local community and the support of other stakeholders has been a critical element to the success of FHA’s effort to protect Gishwati forest, together with a clear perspective on each players’ responsibilities and duties. Also, this successfully influenced the government to upgrade this forest to a national park. 

Knowing and managing the instruments, instances and processes in which land occupation models, land use and activity regulation are planned is fundamental for the effective management of protected areas and the viability of the territory.

The success of the community managed vulture safe zones is because of the ownership to the local communities. When locals get ownership they feel their rights and are encouraged to invest their resources and time. The locals might take the ownership itself as a reward and their willingness to support the cause will be very high though there is less benefit compared to other thing. Apart from some technical support all the management part was taken by the local communities.   

11 member Committee has been formed to manage the vulture safe zone  and also a five year management plan is in place. The committee manages the overall setup of the vulture safe zone and are supported by two staff. Tourism promotion, supply of food to vulture and counting of vulture nest and vultures in feeding are the day to day operation of the vulture safe zone.

One of the main building block of this solution is citizen science since the locals were themselves monitoring the vulture colony so it was very easy for them to understand the population decline of the vulture. Also carcass disposal was a burden for them. Citizen science is very useful in mobilising the group to take action in addressing the issue. Hence the same formula was also applied in our solution.  The communities were very positive in setting up community managed vulture restaurant. Community managed vulture restaurant consists of a cow shed where old cows are kept till they naturally die and then fed to the vultures in an designated open space. This will let the vultures having the nesting colony there to feed on the safe diclofenac free carcass. In addition to this a bird hide and information center has been established for tourist and general public to see the vultures feeding as well as sharing knowledge on vulture crisis in the country and the conservation effort from the local communities. Communities are also benefiting from the tourism promotion.

The local protocol contextualizes the Kyoto Protocol by adapting it to local conditions, develops formal and contextualized MRV (measurement, reporting and verification) methodologies, and confers value to natural capital in a way that favors landowners.

We propose replication of this building block across the subnational level: the financing of carbon footprint mitigation via small state taxes that comprise a state fund—operating under local protocol, adapted to the land owners' contexts—with additional funding by governmental organizations—CONAFOR and SAGARPA. We provide technical assistance to officials from other states in adapting this model to their contexts and priorities.

For purposes of transparency and standardization, we use validated ICAT methodologies when calculating carbon reductions that are based on natural capital recovery. We develop customized ecological models for different states and provide training to align public policies, promoting innovative financing via small carbon taxes at the state level and increased federal investment oriented towards integrating regenerative practices. This is a public policy that incentivizes climate mitigation and the regeneration of natural infrastructure, rooted in a collective response from rural society.

The network of marine areas of responsible fishing today brings together more than 11 marine territorial areas and 2 in the process of being recognized, which provide protection to marine species through a responsible fishing effort. The areas protect biodiversity in the Pacific and Caribbean of Costa Rica. Citizen science and participatory research exercises have been developed that demonstrate the biological benefits of these types of marine areas under shared governance models.

The process makes it possible to address problem solving from the poorest and most vulnerable sectors and to give a voice to the voiceless. The process develops tools that allow a better distribution of benefits to the most vulnerable sectors. The role of women and young people in the value chain of small-scale fisheries is clearly strengthened. The strengthening of and spaces for learning-by-doing among fisherwomen and the discussion on access and rights to the benefits derived from fishing under equal conditions has been fundamental. The agenda of women from rivers, seas, lakes and lagoons is being developed with 4 strategic axes: health, economic empowerment, decent work and sustainable use.