A political ecology of REDD+: Property rights,militarised protectionism,and carbonised exclusion in Cross River

This paper offers a critical assessment of REDD+ in Nigeria through a political ecology perspective. Focusing on questions of property rights and resource access, it maps the discursive articulations and contestations through which carbon rights are being determined. It also shows how these articulations and contestations are linked to land and forest rights, and how they shape everyday access to the forest. Evidence from the Nigerian case suggests that factors that complicate rights and undermine access to resources for forest communities under REDD+ are immanent to the contested terrain constituted in part by REDD+ proposals, proponents’ discourses and practices geared towards securing the forest for REDD+. Efforts to secure property rights and guarantee the permanence of REDD+ forests align with economic, ecological and ideological aspirations of state and non-state actors to produce a regime of militarised protectionism. I demonstrate how, in addition to its material and symbolic facilitation of the emergent carbon forestry economy, militarised protectionism as a regime of exclusion also constitutes collateral political economies of ‘more-than-carbon’ forest resources (such as timber and non-timber forest products) which perpetuate capital accumulation by the elites. It is this kind of exclusion–accumulation dialectic, legitimised by carbon forestry claims that this paper describes as carbonised exclusion. The paper thus furthers debates on the political ecology of REDD+ and other carbon forestry projects, while productively engaging technocentric literature on REDD+ and property rights.     

Locating international REDD+ power relations: Debating forests and trees in international climate negotiations

The Reduction of Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiative (REDD+) was initially hailed widely as a smart and cost-effective way to mitigate climate change and has moved quickly compared to other strands of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. Much of the initiative’s original appeal – and a good deal of subsequent controversy around it – relates to framing the world’s tropical forests as carbon sinks and compensating developing countries that manage to reverse or avoid deforestation. REDD+ negotiations can thus be seen a site where the standard divisions between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 (‘developed’ and ‘developing’) were being challenged and interrogated by the negotiating parties and the broader network of actors around the climate regime. This article suggests that such complex and changing global governance policy fields need to be analysed as ‘places’ in their own right, populated by actors engaged in field-specific power relations that may not reflect international hierarchies or power relations manifested in other international settings. Based in a unique set of interviews supplemented by primary data analysis, this article unpacks the power relations of REDD+ negotiations by examining how those involved seek to assume competence, designate and recognize leadership, and shape outcomes. In tracing the dynamics of claiming competence, the ‘competition’ between two disciplinary milieus around forests as an international policy object and also delegates’ shifting between reliance on expert knowledge and political ‘know-how’ in the negotiations themselves are identified. To understand the politics of recognition – that is to have a claim to competence or position acknowledged by others – the perceived qualities and resources of recognized leadership are examined and the absence of global superpowers amongst REDD+ leadership is problematized and discussed. Finally, in terms of wielding influence over outcomes, the fate of two quite similar ideas – one that has become incorporated into REDD+ methodology and another that is failing to be – further illustrate how the field is marked by internal power practices and that not all actors are equally well-positioned to achieve desired outcomes.     

Is REDD+ effective,efficient, and equitable? Learning from a REDD+ project in Northern Cambodia

REDD+ is a global scale climate change mitigation program aiming at creating financial values for carbon stored in forests. According to the proponents, REDD+ is an effective, efficient, and equitable mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Some scholars question this assumption, and some call for further analysis to understand how REDD+ can contribute to economic, environmental, and social goals, and what are the synergies and trade-offs between them. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate about whether REDD+ projects can be brought to accommodate economic (efficiency), environmental (effectiveness), and social (equity) concerns at the same time by drawing on own field results from a REDD+ project in Cambodia. The paper follows three tracks. The first is to develop and explain the conceptual and analytical framework for our empirical investigations. The second is to explain the field results. The third track is to discuss what general lessons can be learnt. Our case illustrates some of the mechanisms that are likely to work against the willingness and ability of REDD+ projects to ensure local people’s net-gains, and the risk that effectiveness and equity will suffer if REDD+ projects rely solely on the private market. Our case thus indicates a tension between the objectives of creating financial value from carbon stored in trees through the private market, and environmental and social equity concerns. However, we call for more comparative studies of REDD+ projects, and hope our conceptual framework can assist such studies.     

REDD+ for Red Books? Negotiating rights to land and livelihoods through carbon governance in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

In Vietnam, initial programs to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) have proliferated through international finance and new governance regimes for climate change mitigation. National capacity and legal frameworks have been adjusted to make the country eligible for REDD+ financing. In some local areas, activities have been implemented to ‘produce’ carbon credits intended for the international voluntary carbon market. Through a case study of a pilot REDD+ project in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, we examine how REDD+ has intersected with property rights institutions and agrarian change to influence changing property relations and commodity markets. Our findings show that REDD+ implemented through state and local institutions has articulated with the local political economy to coproduce conditions that embody local norms, needs, and desires. Specifically, local actors negotiate state-sanctioned tenurial instruments used for REDD+ governance, not for the purposes of carbon sequestration but instead in order to reassert their rights to land and forest for the cultivation of boom crops—the antithesis of REDD+ objectives. In the fine balancing act of adjusting local forestland holdings, REDD+ implementation has effectively facilitated increased opportunities for upland villagers to strategically claim land titles from local political authorities in the form of communal land certificates for forests called ‘Red Books’. In securing communal Red Books, villagers redefine or co-constitute the purpose of REDD+ to secure land for cash crop and commercial timber production. As with other forms of environmental governance, REDD+ is thus co-constituted locally in line with state and local institutions and histories and present day realities.     

“Yes to Peace”? Environmental peacemaking and transboundary conservation in Central America

The use of transboundary conservation as tools for improving interstate relations has become a widely supported initiative in nature conservation. The rationale follows the environmental peacemaking hypothesis, which argues that seemingly neutral environmental issues can provide a sound basis for cooperation between states. The paper investigates the hypothesis’ premise through the case of International System of Protected Areas for Peace (Si-A-Paz), a transboundary protected area shared by Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In recent years, both countries have been involved in a number of border conflicts within Si-A-Paz and linked to the use of the San Juan River, contested land areas, and oil resources. The case of Si-A-Paz shows that transboundary environmental issues can provide arguments for maintaining or even strengthening conflicts rather than fostering peace between states. The case also shows the emergence of environmental issues as a new arena for geopolitical play, where actors not only justify their actions through an environmental discourse but also, the environmental discourse is stretched to include a variety of issues through which actors can obtain international support. The events in Nicaragua and Costa Rica raise questions about the role of transboundary conservation as a peacebuilding tool.     

Objectives,ownership and engagement in Lao PDR’s REDD+ policy landscape

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) is envisioned as a performance-based incentive to influence forest use behavior and governance towards the preservation and management of forests. In relatively forest-rich Lao PDR, the policy space that REDD+ planners are attempting to navigate is populated by enduring political and economic interests that affect the country’s forest estate. A further layer to the problem of REDD+ planning is the tension between often expert-driven, externally proposed solutions; national ownership over interventions; and the extent of political will to take action to reform currently unsustainable patterns of forest and forest land exploitation. This paper draws from a series of semi-structured interviews conducted in 2013–2014, to develop a political and institutional analysis of the limitations to the effectiveness of REDD+ in steering towards a lower forest-derived emissions trajectory in Lao PDR. While internationally-driven projects follow long-standing national objectives to varying degrees, it remains unclear how REDD+ can target main drivers of deforestation in the absence of a more politically engaged and nationally-owned planning process, that also challenges the prevailing logic of avoiding these drivers. Despite the importance of improving domestic ownership over REDD+, this would arguably be of limited impact unless oriented towards transformational change that would seek to overcome political and economic barriers to avoided deforestation. Stronger ownership could be developed via more mutually driven REDD+ planning, while tackling main drivers of deforestation necessitates as a starting point the engagement of powerful actors that have so far been absent from REDD+ debate.     

Environmental democratization and water justice in extractive frontiers of Colombia

Mechanisms of democratic participation have been activated in Colombia since 2006 for the purpose of protecting water sources, hydrosocial territories and peasant livelihoods. A chronological perspective on the numerous and varied cases illustrates their cumulative, transformative effect on judicial decisions taken by the high courts, which have endorsed these mechanisms of direct democracy and expanded the scope of democratization to socioenvironmental issues. The process of environmental democratization in Colombia has been gradual, starting with the creation of opportunities for citizen participation in the Constitution of 1991; followed in the first decade of this century by the activation of the mechanisms of democratic participation created; and culminating with the watershed Constitutional Court ruling T-445 of 2016, which confirmed the right of municipalities to consult with their citizens about mining and oil extraction in their territories. The cases are analyzed here through the lens of democratization and transformative and judicialized politics. The paper argues that the reconfiguration of power through the use and contestation of participatory mechanisms reveals an ambiguous state-formation process characterized by repressed democratization. It also demonstrates that the process of environmental democratization that started with the activation of the democratic participation mechanisms introduced in the Constitution of 1991 has been one of transformative democratic politics, in which a dynamic array of political actors have consolidated democratic participation on environmental issues through constitutional lobbying and activism.     

Magmatic processes that generate chemically distinct silicic magmas in NW Costa Rica and the evolution of juvenile continental crust in oceanic arcs

Northwestern Costa Rica is built upon an oceanic plateau that has developed chemical and geophysical characteristics of the upper continental crust. A major factor in converting the oceanic plateau to continental crust is the production, evolution, and emplacement of silicic magmas. In Costa Rica, the Caribbean Large Igneous Province (CLIP) forms the overriding plate in the subduction of the Cocos Plate—a process that has occurred for at least the last 25 my. Igneous rocks in Costa Rica older than about 8 Ma have chemical compositions typical of ocean island basalts and intra-oceanic arcs. In contrast, younger igneous deposits contain abundant silicic rocks, which are significantly enriched in SiO₂, alkalis, and light rare-earth elements and are geochemically similar to the average upper continental crust. Geophysical evidence (high Vp seismic velocities) also indicates a relatively thick (~40 km), addition of evolved igneous rocks to the CLIP. The silicic deposits of NW Costa Rica occur in two major compositional groups: a high-Ti and a low-Ti group with no overlap between the two. The major and trace element characteristics of these groups are consistent with these magmas being derived from liquids that were extracted from crystal mushes—either produced by crystallization or by partial melting of plutons near their solidi. In relative terms, the high-Ti silicic liquids were extracted from a hot, dry crystal mush with low oxygen fugacity, where plagioclase and pyroxene were the dominant phases crystallizing, along with lesser amounts of hornblende. In contrast, the low-Ti silicic liquids were extracted from a cool, wet crystal mush with high oxygen fugacity, where plagioclase and amphibole were the dominant phases crystallizing. The hot-dry-reducing magmas dominate the older sequence, but the youngest sequence contains only magmas from the cold-wet-oxidized group. Silicic volcanic deposits from other oceanic arcs (e.g., Izu-Bonin, Marianas) have chemical characteristics distinctly different from continental crust, whereas the NW Costa Rican silicic deposits have chemical characteristics nearly identical to the upper continental crust. The transition in NW Costa Rica from mafic oceanic arc and intra-oceanic magma to felsic, upper continental crust-type magma is governed by a combination of several important factors that may be absent in other arc settings: (1) thermal maturation of the thick Caribbean plateau, (2) regional or local crustal extension, and (3) establishment of an upper crustal reservoir.     

Modeling a tsunami from the Nicoya,Costa Rica,seismic gap and its potential impact in Puntarenas

Although subduction zones around the world are known to be the source of earthquakes and/or tsunamis, not all segments of these plate boundaries generate destructive earthquakes and catastrophic tsunamis. Costa Rica, in Central America, has subduction zones on both the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts and, even though large earthquakes (Mw = 7.4–7.8) occur in these convergent margins, they do not produce destructive tsunamis. The reason for this is that the seismogenic zones of the segments of the subduction zones that produce large earthquakes in Costa Rica are located beneath land (Nicoya peninsula, Osa peninsula and south of Limón) and not off shore as in most subduction zones around the world. To illustrate this particularity of Costa Rican subduction zones, we show in this work the case for the largest rupture area in Costa Rica (under the Nicoya peninsula), capable of producing Mw ～ 7.8 earthquakes, but the tsunamis it triggers are small and present little potential for damage even to the largest port city in Costa Rica.The Nicoya seismic gap, in NW Costa Rica, has passed its ～50-year interseismic period and therefore a large earthquake will have to occur there in the near future. The last large earthquake, in 1950 generated a tsunami which slightly affected the southwest coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. We present here a simulation to study the possible consequences that a tsunami generated by the next Nicoya earthquake could have for the city of Puntarenas. Puntarenas has a population of approximately eleven thousand people and is located on a 7.5 km long sand bar with a maximum height of 2 m above the mean sea level. This condition makes Puntarenas vulnerable to tsunamis.     

Amenity migration to the global south: Implications for community development

Despite a growing trend of migration to countries in the global South fueled by their natural amenities (i.e., natural amenity migration), research on this topic has predominantly been conducted in the global North. This is problematic given the notable socioeconomic, attitudinal, and behavioral differences between amenity migrants (often urbanites from developed countries) and local people (often rural residents of developing countries). Grounded in community field theory, this study begins to fill this gap in the literature by increasing our understanding of the ways in which local residents and amenity migrants interact in the amenity-rich community of Nuevo Arenal, Costa Rica. We found that linguistic, cultural, and spatial barriers (real and perceived) created a social climate in which the interaction between local residents and amenity migrants was primarily based on mundane interactions and did not lead to social integration. This proved to be a hindrance to the creation of the community field, which led to a lack of joint planning and participation in activities and projects that sought to improve the overall living conditions in the community. Explanations of these findings and the implications of such a divide are offered.     

Water supply and sanitation of Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a developing country whose citizens pride themselves on care for the environment. Environmental care is only slowly spreading to include safe and reliable water supplies. Plentiful water resources are used for energy production, industry, municipal water supply, and agriculture. The amount and quality of water resources must be understood and protected for future sustainable use. Based on interviews and conversations, some Costarricense are aware of the need for protection of natural water resources through preservation of forests; other steps toward sustainable water use are not universally valued. Streams are not the preferred source of domestic water supply due to potential water contamination; mostly from untreated sewage, sediment and agricultural chemicals. Quantity and quality of ground water supplies, the current main source of domestic water, are being investigated by scientists of Costa Rica. While 99 % of the population has access to a known supply of domestic water, only 82 % of the population has consistent access to potable drinking water. The potable water supply is smaller in rural areas. Three percent of sewage in Costa Rica is treated before release to the environment. The Río Tárcoles water basin, underlying the largest urban area of Costa Rica, is probably the most polluted in Central America. More is spent for treatment of water-borne diseases than on water supply and sewage treatment. Other potential sources of water contamination are examined.     

Tsunamis recorded in tide gauges at Costa Rica Pacific coast and their numerical modeling

Here we perform an inventory of tsunamis recorded by tide gauges in the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. This paper also reveals nine tsunami records that had not been published before, at Puntarenas tide gauge corresponding to the 1979 Colombia tsunami and at Quepos tide gauge corresponding to the 1985 Mexico twin tsunamis, the 2010, 2014 and 2015 Chile tsunamis, the 2006 Tonga tsunami, the 2011 Japan tsunami and the 2013 Solomon Islands tsunami. The original record of 1990 Cóbano tsunami at Quepos was digitized again at a higher resolution and re-processed. The arrival of 1979, 1985, 2006 and 2014 tsunamis to Costa Rica is not listed on tsunami catalogs. The maximum tsunami height obtained here after processing 1990, 2011 and 2013 records was higher than reported on catalogs. The opposite happened for the 2010 tsunami. Quepos gauge record for January 2007 was analyzed as it seemed to have registered the Kuril Islands tsunami, but the results were not conclusive due to the low sample rate and the small tsunami amplitude if any. All those eleven tsunamis were modeled and the results compared with the records. A good agreement was obtained for the Quepos gauge, although the modeled 2011 and 2013 tsunamis had a difference of 8 min on the arrival time. An acceptable agreement was obtained for the Puntarenas gauge for 1979 tsunami, considering at least the first 4 h of the marigram is lost.     

哥斯达黎加地震起源计划——IODP334航次介绍

2011年3月13日至4月13日哥斯达黎加地震起源计划IODP334航次在中美洲哥斯达黎加俯冲带大陆边缘斜坡带实施。该航次的主要科学目标是研究俯冲剥蚀控制的俯冲带大地震的聚集和破裂过程。在1个月的钻探时间内,总共在4个站位、8个钻孔中获得1492．88m的岩芯,获得许多中新世到现代的火山灰层,初步确定上覆板块内沉积物和...     

Lithium isotopic composition of Central American volcanic arc lavas: implications for modification of subarc mantle by slab-derived fluids: correction

Our previously reported lithium isotope data for the least enriched members of the Central American Volcanic Arc were in error due to problems in ion extraction from high MgO rocks. This paper presents reanalyses of the entire suite of the CAVA lavas after a systematic investigation of the elution behavior of Li as a function of the rock composition. The most significant correction pertains to the mantle end members of the Nicaragua and Costa Rica series, which now display MORB-like δ⁶Li values (−4.5‰) and not much lighter (+1‰ to +3‰) as previously reported. Also revised is the composition of a peridotite from Zabargad Island (Red Sea), considered to represent undepleted upper mantle, whose corrected δ⁶Li also resembles MORB. These new data therefore remove the speculation that Earth's primitive mantle has extremely light Li isotopic composition and that the mantle beneath CAVA contains such isotopically light domains. The δ⁶Li range for the arc segment from Costa Rica to Guatemala has now been reset to −4.5‰ to −6.4‰. Despite the narrower range, Li isotopic values remain well correlated with other subduction-related properties, including LILE and fluid-mobile elements. Model calculations show that the isotopic compositions of the lavas are consistent with small additions of slab-derived fluids to the enriched and depleted domains of the subarc mantle.     

Near-regional CMT and multiple-point source solution of the September 5, 2012, Nicoya,Costa Rica Mw 7.6 (GCMT) earthquake

We use acceleration data from the Observatorio Vulcanologico y Sismologico, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (OVSICORI-UNA) and Laboratorio de Ingenieria Sismica, Universidad de Costa Rica (LIS-UCR) seismic network for the relocation and moment-tensor solution of the September 5, 2012, 14:42:03.35 UTC, Nicoya, Costa Rica earthquake (Mw 7.6 GCMT). Using different relocation methods we found a stable earthquake hypocenter, near the original OVSICORI-UNA location in the Nicoya Peninsula, NW Costa Rica at Lat 9.6943°N, Lon 85.5689°W, depth 15.3 km, associated with the subduction of the Cocos plate under Caribbean plate. Acceleration records at OVSICORI-UNA and LIS-UCR stations (94–171 km), at 0.03 < f < 0.06 Hz were used in the waveform inversion for a single-point centroid moment tensor (CMT). Using spatial grid search the centroid position was found at the depth of 30 km, situated at Lat 10.0559°N, Lon 85.4778°W, i.e. of about 41 km NNE from the epicenter. The centroid time is 14:42:18.89 UTC, i.e. 15.54 s later relative to the location-based origin time. The nodal plane (strike 318°, dip 27° and rake 115°) is the fault plane that agrees with the geometry of the subducted slab at Nicoya, NNW Costa Rica. Increasing the maximum studied frequency from 0.06 to 0.15 Hz, the multiple point source inversion model leads to two subevents. The first one was located near the centroid and the second subevent was situated 20 km along strike and 10 km down dip from the first subevent and 6 s later. The uncertainty of the source model was carefully examined using complementary inversion methods, viz the iterative deconvolution and non-negative least squares.     

剥蚀型汇聚板块边缘大地震成因机理研究:来自国际综合大洋钻探344航次的报告

旨在探究剥蚀型汇聚板块边缘大地震成因机理的国际综合大洋钻探(IODP)344航次于2012年10月23日至12月11日在中美洲地震频发的哥斯达黎加西部海域实施钻探。介绍了钻探区域的大地构造特征、该航次的主要科学目标、执行情况、所取得的初步成果以及对航次后研究工作的展望等。航次后更多深入细致的研究工作正在进行中,所取得的研究成果将集中在2014年南京召开的航次后学术研讨会上汇报、交流、集成、总结,从而提升对剥蚀型汇聚板块边缘大地震起源机理的认识。     

Middle Miocene to present plate tectonic history of the southern Central American Volcanic Arc

New mid Miocene to present plate tectonic reconstructions of the southern Central American Volcanic Arc (CAVA) reveal that the inception of Cocos Ridge subduction began no earlier than 3 Ma, and possibly as late as 2 Ma. The Cocos Ridge has been displaced from the Malpelo Ridge to the southeast since 9 Ma along the Panama Fracture Zone (PFZ) system. Ambiguous PFZ and Coiba Fracture Zone (CFZ) interaction since 9 Ma precludes conclusively establishing the age of initial Cocos Ridge subduction. Detailed reconstructions based on magnetic anomalies offshore reveal several other variations in subduction parameters beneath southern Central America that preceded subduction of the Cocos Ridge, including southeastward migration of the Nazca–Cocos–Caribbean triple junction along the Middle America Trench (MAT) from 12 Ma to present, and subduction of ≤2 km high scarps both parallel and perpendicular to the trench from 6 to 1 Ma.The timing of changes in subduction processes has commonly been determined by (and correlated with) geologic changes in the upper plate. However, reliable ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of these events has become available only recently [Abstr. Programs-Geol. Soc. Am. (2002)]. These new dates better constrain the magmatic and structural history of southern Costa Rica. Observations from this data set include: a gap in the volcanic record from 11 to 6 Ma, which coincides temporally with emplacement of most plutons in southern Costa Rica, normal arc volcanism ceased after 3.5 Ma in southern Costa Rica, and Pliocene (mostly 1.5 Ma) adakite volcanism was widely distributed from central Panama to southern Costa Rica (though volumetrically insignificant).This new data reveals that many geologic phenomena, commonly attributed to subduction and underplating of the buoyant Cocos Ridge, in fact precede inception of Cocos Ridge subduction and seem to correlate more favorably in time with earlier tectonic events. Adakite volcanic activity corresponds in space and time with the subduction of a large scarp associated with a tectonic boundary off southern Panama. Regional unconformities and an 11–6 Ma gap in arc volcanism match temporally with oblique subduction of the Nazca plate beneath central and southern Costa Rica. Cessation of volcanic activity, low-temperature cooling of plutons in the Cordillera de Talamanca (CT), and rapid increases in sedimentation in the fore-arc and back-arc basins coincide with passage of the Nazca–Cocos–Caribbean triple junction and initiation of subduction of “rough” crust associated with Cocos–Nazca rifting 3.5 Ma, closely followed by initial subduction of the Cocos Ridge 2–3 Ma. None of the aforementioned geologic events occurred at a time that would allow for underplating by the Cocos Ridge. Rather they are probably related to complex interactions with subduction of complicated plates offshore. All of the aforementioned events indicate that the southern Central American subduction system has been in flux since at least 12 Ma.     

A Mid Cretaceous origin for the Galápagos hotspot: volcanological, petrological and geochemical evidence from Costa Rican oceanic crustal segments

The Quepos, Nicoya and Herradura oceanic igneous terranes in Costa Rica are conspicuous features of a Mid to Late Cretaceous regional magmatic event that encompasses similar terranes in Central America, Colombia, Ecuador and the Caribbean. The Quepos terrane (66?Ma), which consists of ol-cpx phyric, tholeiitic pillow lavas overlain by highly vesicular hyaloclastites, breccias and conglomerates, is interpreted as an uplifted seamount/ocean island complex. The Nicoya (～90?Ma) and Herradura terranes consist of fault-bounded sequences of sediments, tholeiitic volcanics (pillow lavas and massive sheet flows) and plutonic rocks. The volcanic rocks were emplaced at relatively high eruption rates in moderate to deep water, possibly forming part of an oceanic plateau. Major and trace element data from Nicoya/Herradura tholeiites indicate higher melting temperatures than inferred for normal mid-ocean-ridge basalts (MORB) and/or a different source composition. Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic ratios from all three terranes are distinct from MORB but resemble those from the Galápagos hotspot. The volcanological, petrological and geochemical data from Costa Rican volcanic terranes, combined with published age data, paleomagnetic results and plate tectonic reconstructions of this region, provide strong evidence for a Mid Cretaceous (～90Ma) age for the Galápagos hotspot, making it one of the oldest known, active hotspots on Earth. Our results also support an origin of the Caribbean Plate through melting of the head of the Galápagos starting plume.