Miguel Cifuentes

Mangrove forests play an important role in mitigating climate change but are threatened by aquaculture expansion. The inclusion of mangroves in climate change mitigation strategies requires measuring of carbon stocks and the emissions caused by land use change over time. This study provides a synthesis of carbon stocks in mangrove and shrimp ponds...

Global-scale variation in mangrove ecosystem properties has been explained using a conceptual framework linking geomorphological processes to distinct coastal environmental settings (CES) for nearly 50 years. However, these assumptions have not been empirically tested at the global scale. Here, we show that CES account for global variability in man...

With the growing recognition that effective action on climate change will require a combination of emissions reductions and carbon sequestration, protecting, enhancing and restoring natural carbon sinks have become political priorities. Mangrove forests are considered some of the most carbon-dense ecosystems in the world with most of the carbon sto...

There is limited information regarding the adaptation of anatomical features and growth ring formation to ecological site conditions in Costa Rican mangrove trees. We used the methods and principles of ecological anatomy to explore the relationship between wood properties (e.g., ring formation, anatomical characteristics) and ecological factors for...

Loss-on-ignition (LOI) has been widely used to estimate soil organic carbon (OC) content for coastal wetland soils, owing to recent interest in ‘blue carbon’ systems. Comparatively less attention has been paid to soil nutrient retention, specifically total nitrogen (TN), despite being a historically limited resource that influences C cycling and aq...

Mangroves of the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of Bahamian, Carolinian, Eastern Caribbean, Floridian, Greater Antilles, Northern Gulf of Mexico, Southern Caribbean, Southern Gulf of Mexico, Southwestern Caribbean and Western Car...

In this thesis, we undertake a comprehensive assessment of the impact of state policies on Costa Rica's forestry and agricultural land use sectors, with a central focus on promoting a green transformation. Our analysis spans the environmental, social, rural, economic, and institutional dimensions of these policies, aiming to distill valuable insigh...

Tropical reforestation is among the most powerful tools for carbon sequestration. Yet, climate change impacts on productivity are often not accounted for when estimating its mitigation potential. Using the process-based forest growth model 3-PGmix, we analyzed future productivity of tropical reforestation in Central America. Around 29°C mean annual...

This study is the first ever to gather local mangrove scientists, forest managers and policy-makers world-wide to identify the future scientific curiosity-driven and managerial need-driven questions to which science, management, and/or governance needs an answer.

The North Atlantic Basin (NAB) has seen an increase in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones since the 1980s, with record-breaking seasons in 2017 and 2020. However, little is known about how coastal ecosystems, particularly mangroves in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, respond to these new "climate normals" at regional and subregio...

Unlabelled: The use of loss on ignition (LOI) measurements of soil organic matter (SOM) to estimate soil organic carbon (OC) content is a decades-old practice. While there are limitations and uncertainties to this approach, it continues to be necessary for many coastal wetlands researchers and conservation practitioners without access to an elemen...

Esta investigación define los elementos de gobernanza para la restauración y gestión adaptativa del ecosistema de bosque de pino de Honduras y su situación actual. La metodología cualitativa consistió en tres fases: a) caracterización de los principales retos y condiciones de partida para una estrategia de restauración; b) identificación de las pri...

The North Atlantic Basin (NAB) is seeing a significant increase in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones since the 1980s, with record-breaking seasons such as 2017 and 2020. However, little is known about how coastal ecosystems, particularly mangroves in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, are responding to these new climate normals at...

Puede encontrar en: https://repositorio.catie.ac.cr/handle/11554/11741

Descripción de las acciones desarrolladas para la rehabilitación del ecosistema de manglar en 300 hectáreas ubicadas en el HEPyMA y el RNVS Cipancí.

Native tree species and species mixtures are key elements for biodiversity conservation by forest plantations. Yet, introduced species planted in monoculture still dominate plantation forests in many regions around the world and especially in the tropics. In Costa Rica and Panamá, Tectona grandis (teak) is the most planted species, occupying 49% an...

El proyecto Trees on Farms ejecutado por el CATIE, identificó la necesidad de crear una herramienta conceptual y operativa que permita la clasificación automática de la cobertura arbórea en paisajes productivos, dándose énfasis a las cercas vivas como elementos de conexión, las cuales favorecen la conectividad ecológica de especies de aves, y estim...

Blue Carbon Ecosystems (BCEs) help mitigate and adapt to climate change but their integration into policy, such as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), remains underdeveloped. Most BCE conservation requires community engagement, hence community-scale projects must be nested within the implementation of NDCs without compromising livelihoods o...

A medida que crece la población, se van desarrollando mecanismos de presión ambiental, social y ecológica que representan una amenaza para la naturaleza y para el bienestar humano de los habitantes del cantón. Sin embargo, el cantón de La Unión ha venido creciendo de una manera muy heterogénea lo cual hace que to¬davía queden importantes espacios v...

Los servicios ecosistémicos culturales son aquellos no materiales que las personas obtienen de la naturaleza y los ecosistemas. Comprenden la inspiración estética, la identidad cultural, el sentimiento de apego y la experiencia espiritual relacionada con el entorno natural. (FAO 2020) La recreación se define como aquellas actividades que se realiza...

Estos servicios se refieren a los beneficios materiales que se obtienen de los ecosistemas. Son utilizados a nivel comercial en los mercados, pero también representan un importante rubro de subsistencia en zonas rurales. Entre ellos, se incluye: la producción de alimento (agrícola y pecuario), productos forestales, productos no-maderables del bosqu...

Los servicios ecosistémicos de regulación son aquellos que permiten el desarrollo de las funciones claves del ecosistema, tales como: mantener el clima local, la calidad del aire, el secuestro y almacenamiento de carbono. (FAO, 2020). La cobertura vegetal permite la regulación de la temperatura por medio de la evapotranspiración y sombra brindada p...

El servicio ecosistémico de recurso hídrico pertenece a las cuatro categorías de servicio ecosistémico: 1. Servicio de abastecimiento: por medio del suministro y almacenamiento de agua dulce. 2. Servicio de regulación: aquellos que permiten el desarrollo de las funciones claves ecosistémicas y que regulan los procesos intrínsecos de estas, tales co...

La biodiversidad urbana es importante porque brinda bienes y servicios que el ser humano utiliza directa e indirectamente1; sin embargo, los procesos de expansión de las ciudades, unidos a la degradación y disminución de los espacios naturales y el cambio climático, ponen en riesgo la conservación y sobrevivencia de especies. Los espacios verdes qu...

Due to the public good nature of many of mangrove’s ecosystem services, markets for them do not exist and there is limited potential to manage them with conventional markets. Moreover, because of the difficulties in estimating the value of these non-marketed services, mangroves are often undervalued in benefit cost analysis of conservation versus c...

Los servicios ecosistémicos de regulación son aquellos que permiten el desarrollo de las funciones claves del ecosistema, tales como: mantener el clima local, la calidad del aire, el secuestro y almacenamiento de carbono. (FAO, 2020). La cobertura vegetal permite la regulación de la temperatura por medio de la evapotranspiración y sombra brindada p...

Native tree species and species mixtures are key elements for biodiversity conservation by forest plantations. Yet, introduced species planted in monoculture still dominate plantation forests in many regions around the world and especially in the tropics. In Costa Rica and Panam´a, Tectona grandis (teak) is the most planted species, occupying 49% a...

Comprised of 17 named tropical storms, 6 of which were major hurricanes, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season ranked as one of the most damaging and costly hurricane seasons on record. In addition to socio-economic impacts, many previous studies have shown that important coastal ecosystems like mangroves are shaped by severe storms. However, little i...

Most of the world's ecosystems are being negatively interfered with by anthropogenic activity. One of these is the mangrove ecosystem. Nicaragua, is not the exception, the mangroves of Bluefields Bay, which together with the wetlands make up one of the RAMSAR sites in the world; also, they are heavily intervened. To know the current situation of th...

A working paper that reviewed published results of studies of growth of secondary forests in the neotropics, classified by abandonment age and Life Zine.

En el reporte podrán visualizar una revisión de literatura de artículos científicos sobre crecimiento en diferentes bosques secundarios tropicales y un modelo de regresión que busca desarrollar un posible escenario de crecimiento de los bosques

Se describe la Metodología utilizada para la elaboración del mapa cobertura forestal de El Salvador, 2016, el análisis de cambio de uso, y el desarrollo de los niveles de referencia de emisiones

La respuesta internacional ante el cambio climático se ha dado a través de dos mecanismos complementarios, principalmente: la adaptación y la mitigación. Se debe disminuir la producción de GEI (mitigación) para reducir sus efectos sobre el sistema climático y, de manera paralela, se deben llevar a cabo medidas de adaptación para enfrentar los impac...

This presentation is based on an ongoing research to select and test potential indicators for measuring a Green Transformation (GT) in the land use sector of Costa Rica. We use information from policy documentation to have a preliminary selection of indicators as significant correlated indicators (SCI). The list of SCI was refined by analyzing the...

Knowledge of carbon footprints of eco- systems is important for both consumers and policy makers. In spite of differences in experimental methods, mangrove composition/structure, and land-use approaches, our study and those referenced in Henriksson et al. conclude that the carbon footprint of shrimp arising from mangrove conver- sion is about the l...

de valor socioeconómico para los pobladores que viven en las zonas costeras o trabajan directa o indirectamente en las áreas de influencia. Entre los beneficios se encuentra el potencial que poseen para secuestrar y almacenar carbono en una proporción superior de dos a cinco veces a la captura de los bosques terrestres. Sin embargo, a pesar de la i...

Ante este creciente número de iniciativas orientadas a determinar la capacidad de los manglares para almacenar carbono, es necesario contar con una guía metodológica que permita apoyar dichas mediciones. Aunque se han publicado guías similares (Kauffman et al. 2013, Howard et al. 2014), solo una está en español (Kauffman et al. 2013, traducida y ac...

El propósito de este manual es apoyar y brindar orientaciones a los técnicos de las oficinas de monitoreo forestal de la región, para desarrollar procesos de construcción de los niveles de referencia que permitan evaluar el éxito de sus proyectos o estrategias nacionales de Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación Forestal, Conservaci...

El presente documento se centra en las acciones y resultados obtenidos de dos inventarios de carbono en realizados en manglares de la bahía de Jiquilisco y el estero de Jaltepeque y del fortalecimiento de capacidades asociado. Al caracterizar los ecosistemas de manglar en ambos sitios y cuantificar las existencias y flujos históricos de carbono esp...

Este manual ofrece conceptos básicos de buenas prácticas para el manejo de bases de datos de inventarios forestales nacionales1, su depuración, análisis y obtención de resultados. Se comienza con algunas consideraciones básicas para la estratificación y diseño del plan de muestreo de los INF. Para ejemplificar tipos de diseño y métodos de muestreo...

Scientists have the difficult task of clearly conveying the ecological consequences of forest and wetland loss to the public. To address this challenge, we scaled the atmospheric carbon emissions arising from mangrove deforestation down to the level of an individual consumer. This type of quantification represents the " land-use carbon footprint "...

Cambios de uso de la tierra, como la deforestación y recuperación de cobertura forestal, influyen en la emisión y remoción de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) a la atmósfera, lo cual ha incentivado que países como Nicaragua, estén preparando estrategias de reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación de bosques (REDD+) o de restauración...

Ecuador’s National Forest Inventory (NFI) is the main component of its National Forest Assessment (NFA) which emerged in 2009 as an initiative led by the Ministry of Environment of Ecuador (MAE). The NFA received technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), through the Sustainable Forest Management in th...

Aim We developed a set of statistical models to improve spatial estimates of mangrove aboveground biomass ( AGB ) based on the environmental signature hypothesis ( ESH ). We hypothesized that higher tidal amplitudes, river discharge, temperature, direct rainfall and decreased potential evapotranspiration explain observed high mangrove AGB . Locati...

Cocoa production in the Ecuadorian Amazon is an important source of income for the local population. There is a wide variety of cocoa production systems, from enriched primary forests to traditional agroforestry systems and monoculture. This study assesses the relationship between tree diversity, carbon stocks, agricultural productivity and forest...

IntroductionAdvances in ecology face the complexity of ecosystems with dynamics longer than a single scientist’s career. In forestry and REDD+ practice, in particular, our ability to understand forest ecosystem dynamics and to manage them for mitigation and adaptation strongly relies on the combination of long-term research efforts and on data shar...

IntroductionThe main goal of national forest programs is to lead and steer forest policy development and implementation processes in an inter-sectoral way (FAO 2006). National forest monitoring systems contribute to forest programs through monitoring forest changes and forest services over time (FAO 2013). To do so, they generally collect and analy...

Key messageThree options are proposed to improve the accuracy of national forest biomass estimates and decrease the uncertainty related to tree model selection depending on available data and national contexts.IntroductionDifferent tree volume and biomass equations result in different estimates. At national scale, differences of estimates can be im...

Forests are important sources of livelihoods to millions of people and contribute to national economic development of many countries. In addition, they are vital sources and sinks of carbon and contribute to the rate of climate change. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has been collecting and presenting data on global forest resources and fo...