Institutional Arrangements for Adaptive Governance of Biodiversity Conservation: The Experience of the Area de Conservación de Guanacaste, Costa Rica

A key insight from the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica is that its adaptive governance of biodiversity conservation hinges on five critical institutional attributes: a clear, internalized vision; opportunities for learning and practice; high organizational contextualization; long-term financial and administrative autonomy; and access to diverse resources through multi-scale linkages. These attributes interact dynamically to enable effective co-production of biodiversity conservation, unlike other protected areas in Costa Rica where such factors were absent. The study identifies these attributes by analyzing the ACG's institutional arrangements, offering a model for adaptive governance that can be applied globally.

Basurto, X., & Jiménez-Pérez, I. (2013). Institutional Arrangements for Adaptive Governance of Biodiversity Conservation: The Experience of the Area de Conservación de Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Journal of Latin American Geography, 12(1), 111–134. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2013.0007