Private conservation agreements support climate action: Ecuador’s Socio Bosque programme

The Socio Bosque programme in Ecuador provides annual per-hectare payments to private and communal forest landholders in exchange for maintaining forest cover. While not initially designed for climate mitigation, it has become a pillar of Ecuador's national REDD+ strategy. After three years, the programme signed 1,566 agreements covering 881,933 hectares with a total investment of US$14.4 million. Key challenges include the requirement for legal land titles, high monitoring costs due to satellite cloud interference, and risks of inequitable benefit sharing within communities. The government aims to diversify funding through green taxes and industry payments to reduce the current 40% administrative cost burden.

• The Socio Bosque programme has achieved significant scale in its first three years, signing 1,474 agreements with individuals and 92 with communities, which cover 881,933 hectares and benefit 90,255 people, with a total investment of US$14.4 million.
• The programme uses a tiered payment system based on the size of the area under contract to promote social equity, rather than using the opportunity costs of alternative land uses, which were deemed politically and practically unviable.
• Participation requires legal land title to prevent 'land grabs' by wealthy individuals, but this requirement excludes many poor rural and indigenous people who possess land without formal titles.
• Monitoring is more expensive and difficult than expected because cloud cover interferes with satellite imagery, necessitating more frequent and costly field visits.
• The programme's administrative costs are currently around 40% of the budget, failing to meet the target that at least 70% of funds be spent on conservation payments.
• While the programme supports climate mitigation and is a pillar of the national REDD+ strategy, it was not originally created with climate change mitigation as an explicit goal.

APA

Fehse, J. (2012). Private conservation agreements support climate action: Ecuador’s Socio Bosque programme. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ecuador-InsideStory__WEB2.pdf

Chicago

Fehse, Jan. Private conservation agreements support climate action: Ecuador’s Socio Bosque programme. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2012. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ecuador-InsideStory__WEB2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Fehse |first1=Jan |title=Private conservation agreements support climate action: Ecuador’s Socio Bosque programme |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=September 2012 |url=http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ecuador-InsideStory__WEB2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{fehse2012private, author = {Fehse, Jan}, title = {{Private conservation agreements support climate action: Ecuador’s Socio Bosque programme}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2012}, month = sep, url = {http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ecuador-InsideStory__WEB2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }