Costa Rica
Local Ecosystem Assessment of the Higher and Middle Chirripó River Sub-basins,
Cabécar Indigenous Territory, Costa Rica
Contact Information
- Esther Cámac
Association Ixacavaa de Desarrollo e Información Indígena
San Jose, Costa Rica
ixacavaa@racsa.co.cr
Project Team
The assessment was conducted by: Abraham García, Flor Morales, Elizabeth
Sanabria, Otilio Mora, Roger Espinoza, Carlos Artavia—members of the Cabecar
indigenous community; and Carlos Sevilla, Esther Cámac, and Fabricio Carbonell—consultants.
Funding for this assessment was provided by the MA, SwedBio, and Ixacavaa
Association.
Ecosystem Services Assessed
This is a user-driven assessment conducted in large part using the traditional
knowledge of the inhabitants of the assessment areas. The area is part of
the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve of Costa Rica, established in 1982 and
declared a World Heritage Site one year later. It is located in the buffer
zone of the Caribbean basin, in the sub-basin of the Chirripó River. It
is also a part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor due to its important
ecosystems, with six life zones and species diversity of high conservation
value.
Traditionally, this population conserves deeply-rooted ancestral knowledge
on the uses of ecosystems, and lives in a tropical humid forest with dense
cover. Their territory contains 48,000 hectares of pristine forest that
is currently threatened by timber activities, poaching, pollution, and ecosystem
fragmentation due to the unsustainable agricultural practices of non-indigenous
people. We started by recovering the stories and histories from the elders
about the habitat, its creation, and the norms that regulate its use. We
then complemented this knowledge with scientific literature and produced
a first interpretation of the relation of ecosystems and human well-being
from the Cabécar perspective. We then validated the information in community
gatherings convened by elders in other Cabécar communities. What we came
up with first was a description of the broad cosmovision of the Cabécar
people. Some elements of it are: (1) Earth is a circle surrounded by sea;
there is a balance between upper and lower worlds; (2) habitat as a conic
house; (3) special areas and places are protected by guardians that regulate
access and use of resources; and (4) each living entity is a seed that deserves
respect. Human beings are maize seeds. Given this cosmovision, the relationship
between ecosystems and human well-being needs to be understood as taking
one of three possible forms:
- Interrelation —human beings are part of habitat and habitat is part
of human beings;
- Reciprocity —among human beings (menwomen, children-elders) and
with the environment; and
- Respect — codes, norms, myths, beliefs, dreams.
One of the main qualities of ecosystems is ‘‘abundance’’—these are places
full of life, places of generation of life. Access to this abundance is
regulated by ‘‘guardians’’, which are not human. So the norms that control
access are within the ecosystem itself. Also, among the constituents of
human well-being, the main ones identified are cultural security (identity,
spiritual, health, knowledge), food, territorial security, social and environmental
reciprocity.