As a child, I spent a lot of time on a farm belonging to my grandfather Arturo Echandi Jimenez, who himself was a third-generation coffee farmer. This was not a hobby farm, it was very large – at 440 hectares, or around 1,000 acres, it was a wonderful place to explore and also learn big lessons from.
Arturo acquired this land in Costa Rica’s Orosi Valley when he was 35. Given its size, he dedicated about a quarter to coffee farming and left the remainder alone as old-growth cloud forests. But this changed when the government launched a new policy and programme to encourage an expansion in farming – introducing a tax on all land not under production.
Since Arturo’s forested property wasn’t suitable for coffee, he converted it into pastureland for dairy cattle. At first, this seemed like a great financial move. But then he noticed a steep fall in milk output and was eventually forced to halt his dairy business. The coffee crop was under threat too. By cutting down trees to make room for cattle, he’d damaged the soil and the water sources on the property.
This was a hard lesson for my grandfather, and taught me something very important as well, that I continue to carry with me. I also see it, and I hear it, from farmers all over the world who are working to balance agricultural bounty with environmental health.
When incentives are not aligned to support nature, we all suffer.
In other words, government policies that reward the over-exploitation of natural resources can do long-term harm that hampers the economic growth they were meant to deliver.
This is why as leader of the Global Environment Facility, and as a long-time, committed member of IUCN, I have prioritised policy coherence as a starting place for all planning related to the environment – in agriculture, energy, fisheries, forestry, infrastructure, and more. Policy misalignments are not just costly, they undermine the important goals that countries around the world have committed to achieve for the benefit of the planet.
The good news is that through the GEF and through IUCN, countries are working to put policies and planning efforts into better alignment, for better long-term outcomes.
At the GEF, we understand the benefits that come from breaking down barriers. In 2014, Naoko Ishii – my predecessor as CEO – proposed a new approach to planning: instead of focusing on activities that addressed a single issue, we would channel financing toward programmes that sought to tackle multiple problems at once.
The GEF was an ideal testing ground for this innovative way of thinking, and I have been proud to amplify its applications through the funding we provide in support of six multilateral environmental conventions. There is now an emerging consensus about the need for, and value of, nature-positive governance as a driver of environmental action.
In nature-positive governance, all aspects of economic planning pull in the same direction, with environmental health placed at the center instead as being seen as an afterthought.
This means countries should and can establish regulations and policies that discourage harmful practices while encouraging the flow of financing toward climate and nature, ensuring that authorities work together on effective strategies and implementation.
Internationally, it means organisations of all sizes should work together to find solutions that address not just one but multiple issues in order to target underlying drivers of nature loss.
In conservation, such a strategy that brings together many stakeholders to solve problems at both the micro and the macro level is often referred to as a landscape approach. Approaching challenges this way can help us balance competing goals so nature does not become a casualty of efforts to promote economically important activities such as farming, livestock-rearing, logging, and mining.
Global adoption of this kind of approach will increase the impact of environmental investment, giving us the best possible shot at achieving the goals the world’s leaders have agreed for 2030 and beyond. When policies are aligned, efforts to ensure healthy fish stocks, stop soil erosion, and protect coastal communities from floods, among others, will go much further with positive results that last much longer.
When he passed away in 2004, my grandfather left behind a prosperous farm, with 120 hectares of coffee and nearly 300 hectares of restored forests. It has been a true joy in my life to see this positive transformation, that again came from a change of policy – the launch of economically-minded Payment for Ecosystem Services incentives that reward farmers who preserve nature and create corridors for wildlife. Under this programme, the farm now receives $78 dollars per hectare of forest each year – yielding nearly as much as it makes from coffee.
And my grandfather’s lands are now as rich with biodiversity as I recall them from my childhood in the 1960s – proof that nature can be resilient, and that nature-positive governance can make an enormous difference over the long-term when we prioritise it.
Based on a contribution to the book Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future. https://www.naturepositive.org/news/latest-news/book-launch-press-release/