 Hello, welcome to Global Connections on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. I'm Grace Chang, your host for today. And our guest for the show today is Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Vice President for Conservation Policy at Conservation International. Welcome to the show, Carlos. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Grace, my pleasure. Pleasure to have you here. We have, I know that you are in Honolulu for the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. So I know that it's a huge event and I think there are many interesting things going on. So we'd like to talk to you more about that today. But first, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Sure, sure. Well, first of all, let me say that, yes, we are attending this very important Congress. I used to hear Congress happens once every four years. And this probably has been one of the best. And most, much has to do with the whole stuff that we had and we had a great time here being able to do our Congress in Honolulu has been fabulous. So I'm Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, an environmental lawyer from Costa Rica. I've been working for Conservation International for the last 10 years. I run Conservation International, International Policy Program. This program aims to generate political decisions in terms of nature conservation and environmental conservation at the international level. We try to influence with the best available science that this issue making process at the global level. Before joining CEI, I worked in the government of Costa Rica in the Ministry of Environment in many positions from Director of Protected Areas, Climate Negotiator, International Negotiator on Environmental Issues up to Minister of Environment. Yes, and I forgot to mention that earlier that you're coming to us from Costa Rica. Yes, I'm calling from Costa Rica. This is where you're based. And Costa Rica is such a model for conservation as it's really done a lot to recover some of the forestry, really protect its environment and integrate that deeply into the policy making. So I think Costa Rica is really advanced in terms of the nations around the world as far as integrating that, like breaking down the silos between conservation environmental policy and other aspects of policy making. So could you tell us a bit more about Costa Rica? You're correct. I think we're not a model. We are a country that began putting attention on the role of nature conservation in development. It'll be before the rest of other nations. And I think that most nations of the world has understood that humans cannot survive without nature at all. There won't be economic growth, social development, prosperity if nations are unable to protect nature. Because nature is important, because they provide a lot of important environmental services. Nature contributes in quality productions, in food security. It gives us resilience to climate change. And there's tons of different benefits coming from nature. Costa Rica understood this a little bit before many of the nations. And we began to really develop environmental solutions and policies by which nature contributed to economic growth. Ecotourism is a big industry in Costa Rica. It's not tourism. It's ecotourism. This is the people who visit Costa Rica to see nature. This is family-oriented nature. And we got a very well-consolidated system of protected areas with a high representation of biodiversity. So you can go to many different places in Costa Rica and you can see very different ecosystems and life zones. As you move around Costa Rica, you don't see the same forests and the same animals. As you move around Costa Rica, you have the possibility to see many different species of plants and animals. Many different landscapes and in a few hours drive from one point or another. Costa Rica has one of the highest concentration of animals and plants of the world per square kilometer. So this is unique. And we never understood that. We never had the science and the scientists in the past who can highlight the importance of nature. And for many, many years, we basically destroy our forests and plant the landscape with crops, thinking that that was probably the best economic option. Most of those crops were for exportation, not necessarily for the internal domestic market. And when we were running out of forests, we began filling the environmental impacts in terms of droughts, in terms of erosion, in terms of lack of productivity. And we began a process by which we began put more attention on how to conserve what was left and how to restore what we have already impacted. It took us like 25 years, but we've been extremely successful in not only protecting the forest and restoring nature and having forests once more in the landscape, but also we've been very successful in creating and generating economic opportunities associated to this, and I just mentioned ecotourism. Ecotourism has become a large industry, economically very attractive. If you own land in Costa Rica and you got forests, it is more attractive in economic terms to keep the forest and bring tourism, build a lodge that is clearing the forest and planting pineapple, sugar, cane, or coffee, which was what we did previously. The income per hectare in ecotourism is three or four times higher than those of other traditional economic activities. So that has helped a lot, ecotourism. And also if you're near a large area forest, like in a national park, you can do very good in being able to capture many of those tourists who go to the national park in the Quixote in your lodge. So ecotourism is nature-based tourism, but also the kind of infrastructure that we have developed is special. We don't promote large complexes, tourist complexes and developments, like the 500 room hotel plus three golf courses plus a marina plus a condo. No, we like for the low impact, small lodge, very high quality. We are aiming for the high-end tourists. And 75% of the lodges and tourist operators are 30 rooms and smaller. 80% are Costa Rican owners are Costa Ricans. So we say the spread of the benefits is high. The impact in nature is low because many times developers want to do a big thing in a very fragile ecosystem, like near the shore or right next to the wetland or right next to the mangrove because those are probably the most attractive things. And in many cases, developers are not very good in understanding the kind of infrastructure and development how to mitigate and upset their impacts. So we've been promoting this kind of low impact, small things. We had our big developments in the past and I think that won't be happening in the future. I think that the tendency is towards something smaller, more high-end. We aim to two main groups, the high-end visitor, but also the young people, the backpackers and the young kids that can spend $25 a night with food included. So those two segments are things that we've been promoting in Costa Rica and yes, their nature base. So this does gives value to nature. And the other thing that has helped us a lot to restore and give value to forests, we were losing forests because there was no value associated to own the forest. You struck the timber and then you got a forest without much value. So what you normally did was clear the rest of the forest and plant crops. Now as we restore the forest and the landscape, we have created mechanisms by people are being paid for the services that they provide to society. If you have a forest, you produce water and somebody downstream is gonna use that water in irrigation or for drinking water or for whatever economic purpose a photo hydroelectricity. They use the water that you are producing from your forest. If you are upstream and you chop the forest, those people downstream will get very mad, but nobody pays you for the water you are producing. So we were able to understand the economics behind it and we create mechanism by which people are being paid for their services. They provide primarily carbon offsetting and water production. So those are two things that people are being paid. So this is technologically speaking is very interesting from the point of view of policies. This is very new and different and this has worked very well. And that is why Costa Rica has been able to do quite well in protecting nature, restoring nature and really understanding that nature can be a major driver for growth. And it sounds like it is a different way of thinking about the relationship between and development, economics, the environment as well as the human impact of all of that and also what human beings and human communities benefit from it. Well, I think that Costa Rica has something else which makes it special and that can give us the opportunity to really understand the human nature relationship, which is the fact that Costa Rica is probably one of the last standing democracies. It's a country which is very clear in terms of human rights in democracy and civil rights. It's a nation that abolished the army 75 years ago. So it's a country that has been or it's a society that has been understanding the principles of those values. And having a nation that is so clear in those major values and principle, it gives us the real opportunity to move and adjust and be successful in new areas. You know, a couple of areas that I see that we've been able to do a lot of progress is the gender issue. You know, having such a strong background on those moral and ethical principles as give us the possibility as a society to go very strong on the issue related to gender rights and also nature conservation. Nature conservation is probably the other example on where we've been able to do progress, not only because we've been able to understand the scientific and technical aspects of how to protect nature and being able to bring the economy, the economics behind it, but also everything is underpin on values and principles, and it is very interesting to see how the Costa Ricans behave when they see something wrong being done with nature. Okay, yeah, that's very interesting because it seems like there's so many dimensions towards preserving nature, not just the science behind it, but getting the idea of how do we integrate the moral, ethical, as well as scientific into the economic and policy dimension. Yeah, this is what conservation international does. Conservation international as a global organization works in many parts of the world precisely doing this. Okay, great. Well, we'll talk a little bit more about that after this one minute break. So this is Grace Chang with Carlos Manuel Rodriguez at Global Connection. So please stay tuned and come back for more of the show. For a very healthy summer, watch Viva Hawaii. We're giving you the best tips and with our best health coach here. So Viva, health coach, Viva la comida saludable. Hi, my name is Justine Espiritu. This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson. Every Thursday at 4 p.m., we host the Hawaii Food and Farmers series. This is the place you can come to for insight on the perspective and history and passions of Hawaii's farmers and all folks involved in Hawaii's local food system. What kind of folks do we have on? So we have everyone from local farmers. We have foodies, chefs. We also have journalists, researchers, anyone who's actually working to help make Hawaii's local food system that much better. So join us every Thursday and tweet in the us and ask us some questions and leave your comments as well. Thank you. Welcome back to Global Connection on the Big Tech livestreaming series. This is Grace Chang, your host, and I'm here with Carlos Manuel Rodriguez of Conservation International. So we were talking about how Conservation International is promoting this kind of thinking and what approach to addressing these issues. Yes, most of the conservation organizations in the world has been working the last probably 30 years on what we will say is a strict conservation, working on sites, protecting species, protecting wildlife, trees and plants, which are important for humans. And the best tool that we have used throughout 30 years of conservation is through creating protected areas. And that has been very positive. Today we got 300% more area protected than 30 years ago, but that hasn't been enough to protect nature. And we haven't changed the world. We still have a big environmental problem, globally speaking. We are still losing forests and losing species. So Conservation International has been rethinking on how do we go from now to the future? And we've been able to really understand that humans really depends on nature. And to make the political case, to make the social case behind the need to protect nature, we've been developing a lot of science and we've been implementing a lot of actions at the field level whereby we connect nature conservation with human well-being and human needs. So I would say that Conservation International works in this interface, which is human development and nature conservation. And we've been very successful in promoting and doing this. We work in around 35 countries of the world. Why we work in these countries? Because these are the most important countries in terms of biological richness and diversity. Unfortunately, not many of these countries has national capacities and the resources to protect their own nature. So we work a lot in those countries, building capacities, creating partnerships, working with the governments and the local stakeholders. We do a lot of science and research in those countries and be able to improve and improve not only the conservation capacities, but also the real understanding that the way forward for those nations is growth but without destroying nature. And I think that there is no sustainable growth or sustainable development without really understanding the role that nature plays. So Conservation International has been very successful in doing this. We are present here in Hawaii. We got a Conservation International office here in Hawaii that does works on, of course, in marine issues and terrestrial issues associated to the very special biodiversity that the islands do have. And I think that one of the most important things that I see here in the Pacific is the big political will from the political leaders from these nations in committing towards a new economic paradigm to changing the rules of development and rethinking what they have done in the past and presenting new ideas by which these countries can develop a different development path. This means rethinking fishing licenses and concessions, creating protected areas, being able to promote more sustainable fishing and other activities, understanding what the impacts of climate change will be. How do they become water resilient to large development, more population and climate change? Those issues are really important for these Pacific Island nations and conservation international work in this part of the world, trying to put the best science so the governments and the private sectors can take their voices decisions. Now that's very good to hear that all of this kind of thinking is now expanding and governments are taking this very seriously. It sounds like we have a very international representation coming to the World Conservation Congress that's going on here in Honolulu right now. We got representatives from 190 nations. Around 9,000 people are attending the Congress. The Congress happens once every four years and one every four years we gather around and be able to review what we have done in the previous four years. We try to redesign our strategies and plans for the future. We share a lot of information. We take important decisions on how we move this huge network because IUCN is a network. It's a network of members which may be very small organizations working from a small country or a small isolated region to go all the way to governments and everything in between. You know, scientific institutions, universities, international organizations. So this huge network has a big capacity to do things and very positive things. This week was, in all of the news, we're able to cover the fact that pandas and humpback whales are not anymore in the endangered species list. And this is great. So we can see this as the product of this huge network of conservation organizations working together. And I think that this is great. Unfortunately, as we move out of the endangered species list, the panda and the humpback whale, there's a lot of other species that are being included. Most of these species are all known as small species, you know, like small mammals or reptiles, even some birds and many plants. So the task ahead is huge. But I think that there's a very strong conservation movement at the world level that is making the difference. And that is why it is so important that we have these congress every four years and where we can, you know, review what we have done and where we can, you know, plan for the future on how we can do better so we can be able to protect the beauty of nature. So as this congress is discussing the achievements of the last four years and also talking about the future, what have some of those achievements been and what's distinctive about this gathering? You think some of them have learned it? Well, I think that a few important outcomes can be shared. One is how the use of high technology, how the scientists and conservationists are now using more and more and how the high technology is more affordable for scientific research and conservationists and how this has been helping us to really do a more efficient work. The work that we have done in monitoring biodiversity, the work that we've been doing in tracking migration of animals will help us set the plans to preserve and conserve them better. So the use of high technology is something that is making a difference. It's something that I see a big advance from last congress in the previous year. And I think that this is something that is just going to increase our capacities to have an impact. I think that that is great. The other thing that is a never ending challenge for the conservation communities, how do we go from the scale that we work to a larger scale? How do we do that leap forward in terms of scale and impacts? And this is where a very small group of people can help us which are the people who work on policy, on policy development. We believe and this is something that has been very well discussed in the congress that the conservation efforts and the successful initiatives can be upscale, amplify if we are able to really engage policy makers, decision makers and that our scientific conservation information is put in the right context, in the right language. So by protecting these species, by creating this protected area, by restoring this watershed or this wetland, we will increase the possibilities for the country to achieve their targets in terms of economic growth and poverty alleviation. Doing that, we strongly believe that we will be able to amplify the impact of what we've been doing. Of course climate change is also an issue. Which is important in this congress, in the last congress there was no agreement on climate change. There's an agreement on climate change and nature is 30% of the solution. And let me explain a little bit what I mean by that. If we are able, if we want to mitigate and not update to climate change, we need to use nature. Nature is cost effective in helping us mitigate and adapt it. So the two main things that we need to do in terms of climate change is to mitigate or try to reverse it by avoiding emissions to the atmosphere. And no matter how much we can do and mitigate, we need to adapt it because climate change is happening and will continue to happen. We will want to curve down just the impacts but we need to adapt it. So nature can help us in both ways. So if we want to mitigate climate change, we need to protect our forests. These are tropical forests. These are temperate forests. Forests are big carbon stocks. They plan when a tree grows, it breathes in carbon and keeps the carbon in and that carbon doesn't generate a problem. If we caught the tree, we caught the forest. The carbon is liberated into the atmosphere and this is where the carbon is bad. It contributes to climate change or global warming. So we need to keep the carbon on the forest. The way to do that is paying people, paying government for the service of keeping the carbon where it's not gonna affect us. And we need to restore many lands which are without any forest. If we restore degraded lands, lands that are not even useful for agriculture, if we restore those lands, they will fix carbon and will help mitigate climate change. So we need to invest heavily in nature conservation as a way to mitigate climate change and the science presented in this Congress tell us that the forest and nature conservation is 30% of the solution. 70% is changing the way we generate our energy, electric energy and how we move our cars, boats, ships and planes. Yeah, yeah. And so I think this is where Costa Rica is sort of an inspirational model because it was able to re-forest in such a large extent over the last 30 years or so and also to put this agenda on the national policy level rather than just at the grassroots. So this is a really exciting development to see more and more countries that are coming to participate in the Congress are involved in. That is correct. Conservation International has been working in countries like Costa Rica where we want to do the restoration and use nature as a cost-effective way to mitigate an update to climate change and we've been very successful to do it in many countries. Great, thank you so much for being with us, Carlos. It was really interesting and I'm really glad to hear about all these developments and I think the rest of the world does too because we do need to work hard on this area. Well, thank you, Grace, for the invitation. I want to thank all the Hawaiians for being such a great host for the Congress. These thoughts has made a big difference and this Congress has been one of the best we have ever seen. Great to hear. Okay, thank you all for joining us today at Global Connections. I'm Grace Chang, your host, concluding our interview with Carlos Manuel Rodriguez of Conservation International. You can find me here every Thursday at 1 p.m., so come back and see us again. Aloha and pura vida.