Browsing by Subject "forest conservation"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Improving environmental and social targeting through adaptive management in Mexico's payments for hydrological services program.
    (Conserv Biol, 2014-10) Sims, Katharine RE; Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M; Shapiro-Garza, Elizabeth; Fine, Leah R; Radeloff, Volker C; Aronson, Glen; Castillo, Selene; Ramirez-Reyes, Carlos; Yañez-Pagans, Patricia
    Natural resource managers are often expected to achieve both environmental protection and economic development even when there are fundamental trade-offs between these goals. Adaptive management provides a theoretical structure for program administrators to balance social priorities in the presence of trade-offs and to improve conservation targeting. We used the case of Mexico's federal Payments for Hydrological Services program (PSAH) to illustrate the importance of adaptive management for improving program targeting. We documented adaptive elements of PSAH and corresponding changes in program eligibility and selection criteria. To evaluate whether these changes resulted in enrollment of lands of high environmental and social priority, we compared the environmental and social characteristics of the areas enrolled in the program with the characteristics of all forested areas in Mexico, all areas eligible for the program, and all areas submitted for application to the program. The program successfully enrolled areas of both high ecological and social priority, and over time, adaptive changes in the program's criteria for eligibility and selection led to increased enrollment of land scoring high on both dimensions. Three factors facilitated adaptive management in Mexico and are likely to be generally important for conservation managers: a supportive political environment, including financial backing and encouragement to experiment from the federal government; availability of relatively good social and environmental data; and active participation in the review process by stakeholders and outside evaluators.
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    Lessons Learned from Mexico's PES Program for National-Level REDD+ Strategies
    (2012-04-27) Castillo, Selene
    Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) strategies are currently being created in developing countries across the world as a means of mitigating climate change. REDD+ programs often include Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs, which provide financial incentives for landowners to conserve, as part of larger policy strategies to slow deforestation. PES programs have a relatively long history of implementation in countries around the world. Despite the value of considering experiences from established PES programs, existing literature fails to apply detailed knowledge on PES program design to a REDD+ framework. This study is based on a detailed policy analysis of Mexico’s national PES program and interviews conducted with individuals involved in program design, implementation, operation and evaluation. Results demonstrate the importance of clearly delineated program objectives, coordination of cooperation across scales, prioritization of environmental criteria in selecting participants and differentiated payment schemes adapted to the context of each region. By taking lessons learned from this well-established PES programs, these unprecedented REDD+ strategies can be more effectively designed in order to facilitate significant emissions reductions and socioeconomic development.
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    Measuring protected areas’ impact on deforestation in Panama
    (2010-12-10) Haruna, Akiko
    Throughout the last century, protected areas (PAs) have been the major policy instrument for forest conservation worldwide, as well as in the Republic of Panama. The country has strived to lower the decline in its tropical forest cover which is rich in biodiversity. The importance of evaluating existing forest policies has been increasing, especially with emergence of financial incentives given to mitigation of deforestation. Few studies, however, have examined the effectiveness of forest policies in Panama, including the adoption of PAs. This study evaluates the impact of PAs on deforestation rates in Panama through the use of matching methods. The methods are used to adjust observable selection bias of PAs location. The conventional evaluation methods for protected areas failed to consider such bias, thus results using matching methods were expected to give less distorted estimates of the impact. Two types of matching methods were applied to obtain the estimated impacts of PAs, namely propensity score matching and covariate matching. The results were compared with those from the conventional evaluation methods. Countrywide forested plots in two time periods, 1992-2000, and 2000-2005 were examined. The results indicated positive effects of PAs on prevention of deforestation. They also revealed that conventional evaluation methods overestimated the impact of PAs. Such results agree with the previous matching analysis done for other geographic regions. It seems that the magnitude of the impact was enhanced in areas where high deforestation pressure existed. There was an indication of a geographical shift of deforestation frontiers toward remote areas with time. Bias-adjusted estimates for evaluation of PAs will be critical for formulation of future policy. With PAs being effective in avoiding deforestation, the future focus should be on where to put major resources for protection. As deforestation drivers make the deforestation frontier shift geographically, PAs will need to meet needs of covering forests under large threat in the present and the future.