https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/payments-fo...
In the 1950s, one half of Costa Rica was covered in forest; by 1995, it was only a quarter. In order to reverse this decline, the government introduced a reforestation initiative: the Payments for Environmental Services (PES) programme under Forestry Law 7575 in 1996.

It aimed to preserve the existing forest and promote additional tree-planting by paying landowners for the ecological services they provided by adopting sustainable land management.

This situation appeared to stabilise when, “in 1986, the government adopted a new forestry law and created the Ministry of the Environment (then known as the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy, and Mines) [and] Costa Rica made progress in restoring forest cover”. [2] However, “in 1994, the Ministry of Finance decided to cut the reforestation subsidies the government had been using as its main policy tool. Decision-makers had to look for a new approach”. [3]

The initiative
The approach chosen by policymakers was to instigate Payments for Environmental Services (PES) programme. "The PES programme was introduced by the new Forestry Law 7575 in 1996, First, it banned all conversion of established forests, [which was made] punishable by prison sentences rather than fines ... Second, it introduced the offer of payments for reforesting, protecting forest, or managing existing forest in private properties outside national parks.” [4]

PES was based on the ideas of the NGO, Fundecor, which “advocated a market-oriented approach based on valuation of the economic contribution of Costa Rica’s forests”. [5] “In this system, landowners receive direct payments for the ecological services which their lands produce when they adopt land uses and forest management techniques that do not have negative impacts on the environment and which maintain people's life quality.” [6]


https://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/16514IIED.pdf (this document may shed some light).


Detailed forest classification map of the study area in the year 2008 ...
https://www.researchgate.net › figure › Detailed-forest-classification-map-of-...
Insets show: A a close up of the park (MANP) and hotel nature preserves; and B the ... Biodiversity, Costa Rica and Case Reports | ResearchGate, the professional ... The degraded secondary forest remnant of Analalava, on the east coast, ..... prey to Manuel Antonio-style **desarrollo hormiga ["ant-like development"]** À chaotic ...

Liz, I believe is correct.
Borderlands: Ethnographic Approaches to Security, Power, and Identity
https://books.google.com.jm › books
Hastings Donnan, ‎Thomas M. Wilson - 2012 - ‎Political Science
... contraband continues to cross the border, in often large-scale and ingenious ... **expression hormiga' (on a small scale, literally antlike) signifies the energetic, ...**

The last reference seems to confirm Liz' proposal.

Y hay incluso una degradación hormiga: fincas que brotan como de la nada en algún rincón del bosque, cercas que obstruyen los corredores de fauna, visita descontrolada que daña flora y fauna, basura, cacería furtiva, actividades clandestinas.

http://verdebandera.blogspot.com/2008/09/recursos-naturales....

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Note added at 9 hrs (2019-08-24 21:37:27 GMT)
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Thank you Muriel :-)