Evaluating interactions of forest conservation policies on avoided deforestation.

Robalino, Juan

Sandoval, Catalina

Barton, David N

Chacon, Adriana

Pfaff, Alexander

United States

2016-08-30T01:42:36Z

2015

We estimate the effects on deforestation that have resulted from policy interactions between parks and payments and between park buffers and payments in Costa Rica between 2000 and 2005. We show that the characteristics of the areas where protected and unprotected lands are located differ significantly. Additionally, we find that land characteristics of each of the policies and of the places where they interact also differ significantly. To adequately estimate the effects of the policies and their interactions, we use matching methods. Matching is implemented not only to define adequate control groups, as in previous research, but also to define those groups of locations under the influence of policies that are comparable to each other. We find that it is more effective to locate parks and payments away from each other, rather than in the same location or near each other. The high levels of enforcement inside both parks and lands with payments, and the presence of conservation spillovers that reduce deforestation near parks, significantly reduce the potential impact of combining these two policies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25909323

PONE-D-14-44395

1932-6203

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12708

eng

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

PLoS One

10.1371/journal.pone.0124910

Conservation of Natural Resources

Costa Rica

Ecosystem

Forests

Geography

Humans

Evaluating interactions of forest conservation policies on avoided deforestation.

Journal article

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25909323

e0124910

4

Duke

Duke Population Research Center

Duke Population Research Institute

Economics

Sanford School of Public Policy

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Published online

10