Abstract:
The Green Development Initiative (GDI) is an innovative financial mechanism to conserve biodiversity by creating an international market for its trade. The GDI would accredit management plans for “sale” by land managers to willing buyers. The intent of the plans would be both to conserve biodiversity and improve land manager livelihoods, thus fulfilling the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Currently, the GDI Steering Committee is seeking potential candidates for pilot studies; this paper explores the possibility of implementing a GDI pilot study at the site of three allied shade-grown coffee cooperatives in Tacuba, El Salvador. The strong social capital of the cooperatives and their location within the heavily deforested yet biodiversity-rich El Salvador, directly along the path of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, makes them ideal for selection as a GDI site. A connectivity analysis of this region was conducted in order to measure its conservation potential and to develop a tool for carrying out similar analyses in the future. This paper concludes by advising the Steering Committee to implement a GDI pilot study with the three Salvadoran cooperatives and provides a number of more general recommendations for implementing the GDI in other sites.
