Jan 31, 2026
Costa Rica case study: Gulf of Nicoya, NFF, and 2025 partnership meeting (January 2026)
The Costa Rica case study links land–sea processes—especially water quality and river inputs—to the Gulf of Nicoya, using participatory methods and the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to co-develop visions of desirable coastal and marine futures.
Leads Christian Birkel and Ingo Wehrtmann (University of Costa Rica); post-doc Tayler Clarke; MARVIVA collaborator Fresia Villalobos Rojas; PhD work on gender and fisheries resilience, nutrient export, and eutrophication modeling.
Progress 2022–2024
Section titled “Progress 2022–2024”- Literature and social–ecological scoping; intensive river sampling and water-quality monitoring.
- Desirable futures workshops with MARVIVA (e.g. Costa de Pajaros, Isla Chira, Manzanillo) and conference presence (e.g. WSCC, CISOS).
- Transboundary fisheries conflict and resilience work (Marine Policy).
2025: Hosting the partnership
Section titled “2025: Hosting the partnership”- Feb 10–13, 2025: Solving-FCB international meeting at UCR, San José—including diplomatic engagement, Gulf field trip, and NFF synthesis workshop across case studies.
- Fresia Villalobos keynote on conservation and livelihoods (recording).
- Ongoing thesis work on nutrient export and eutrophication; Discover Oceans special-issue manuscripts in preparation; Solving-FCB podcast episode on the Gulf.
Cross-case links
Section titled “Cross-case links”Land–sea modeling connects to Netherlands causal-loop perspectives; Costa Rica’s NFF practice anchors partnership-wide synthesis on desirable futures.
Source material: internal Costa Rica case-study record (2022–2025).