The role of women in payment for environmental services programs in Osa,Costa Rica

Costa Rica was the first country in the world to implement a nation-wide payment for environmental services (a.k.a. ‘payment for ecosystem services’), or PES, system in 1996. This research investigates the role of women in PES programs in Costa Rica’s Osa peninsula in response to the current dearth of such gendered research on this topic. Osa, one of the least-developed regions of the country, is still heavily forested and replete with properties under PES contracts which are aimed at forest conservation. Extended, structured interviews of 80 landowners in Osa (40 women and 40 men) culled both quantitative and qualitative information about PES participation, environmental perceptions, and both economic and conservation goals. Salient results were, first, that women see current levels of PES funding as more helpful and useful than do men. Second, women much more often perceive themselves as the sole entity responsible for protecting the environment. Third, women more commonly than men listed ‘helping the environment and animals’ as a personal benefit of their PES participation, while men more commonly focused on financial rewards. Last, according to the study herein, women in PES households currently display less decision-making power than those in non-PES households. This dynamic is analyzed through the lens of patriarchal hierarchies as well as women’s mitigation of those hierarchies through the deployment of ideology and agency. Based on these general findings, the researcher recommends that FONAFIFO, the government agency in charge of PES payments, take specific steps to increase PES funding to female-headed households.     

DOGS, 'WATER' AND WALL

1 Sam 25 describes David and Nabal on a collision course diffused by Nabal's wife Abigail. Had she not been successful, David would not have left ''a single one who urinates against a wall'' (25,22.34). The phrase also appears a number of times in 1-2 Kgs. Much has been written about this phrase either in reference to dogs or male humans, but very little scholarship has discussed it in terms of canine realia. We intend to re-examine all of the verses and will attempt to show that some of the later Rabbinic commentary was sensitive to canine realia and maybe of help in determining the meaning of the phrase.