Journal ArticleDOI
A spatially explicit estimate of avoided forest loss.
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
This work assessed the effect of a conservation initiative that combined designation of protected areas with payments for environmental services to conserve over wintering habitat for the monarch butterfly in Mexico using a spatial-matching estimator that matches covariates among polygons and their neighbors.Abstract:
With the potential expansion of forest conservation programs spurred by climate-change agree- ments, there is a need to measure the extent to which such programs achieve their intended results. Conven- tional methods for evaluating conservation impact tend to be biased because they do not compare like areas or account for spatial relations. We assessed the effect of a conservation initiative that combined designa- tion of protected areas with payments for environmental services to conserve over wintering habitat for the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in Mexico. To do so, we used a spatial-matching estimator that matches covariates among polygons and their neighbors. We measured avoided forest loss (avoided disturbance and deforestation) by comparing forest cover on protected and unprotected lands that were similar in terms of accessibility, governance, and forest type. Whereas conventional estimates of avoided forest loss suggest that conservation initiatives did not protect forest cover, we found evidence that the conservation measures are preserving forest cover. We found that the conservation measures protected between 200 ha and 710 ha (3-16%) of forest that is high-quality habitat for monarch butterflies, but had a smaller effect on total forest cover, preserving between 0 ha and 200 ha (0-2.5%) of forest with canopy cover >70%. We suggest that future estimates of avoided forest loss be analyzed spatially to account for how forest loss occurs across the landscape. Given the forthcoming demand from donors and carbon financiers for estimates of avoided forest loss, we anticipate our methods and results will contribute to future studies that estimate the outcome of conservation efforts.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The effectiveness of payments for environmental services
Jan Börner,Kathy Baylis,Esteve Corbera,Driss Ezzine-de-Blas,Jordi Honey-Rosés,U. Martin Persson,Sven Wunder +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors adopt a theory-based approach to synthesize research on the effectiveness of payments for environmental services in achieving environmental objectives and socio-economic co-benefits in varying contexts.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evaluation of biodiversity policy instruments: what works and what doesn't?
TL;DR: Conservation Evaluation 2.0 as mentioned in this paper seeks to measure how programme impacts vary by socio-political and bio-physical context, to track economic and environmental impacts jointly, and to use theories of change to characterize causal mechanisms that can guide the collection of data and the interpretation of results.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cash for carbon: A randomized trial of payments for ecosystem services to reduce deforestation
Seema Jayachandran,Joost de Laat,Eric F. Lambin,Eric F. Lambin,Charlotte Stanton,Robin Audy,N. Thomas +6 more
TL;DR: Satellite-based observation of Ugandan forests documents the effectiveness of paying owners to not cut down their trees, and valued the delayed carbon dioxide emissions and found that this program benefit is 2.4 times as large as the program costs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mainstreaming Impact Evaluation in Nature Conservation
Kathy Baylis,Jordi Honey-Rosés,Jan Börner,Esteve Corbera,Driss Ezzine-de-Blas,Paul J. Ferraro,Renaud Lapeyre,U. Martin Persson,Alexander Pfaff,Sven Wunder +9 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify reasons for the slow adoption of impact evaluation in nature conservation and provide suggestions for mainstreaming impact evaluation for nature conservation, and provide evidence for the need for empirical evidence.
Journal ArticleDOI
What Drives Deforestation and What Stops It? A Meta-Analysis
TL;DR: The authors presented a meta-analysis of what drives deforestation and what stops it, based on a comprehensive database of 121 spatially explicit econometric studies of deforestation published in the last decade.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference
TL;DR: A unified approach is proposed that makes it possible for researchers to preprocess data with matching and then to apply the best parametric techniques they would have used anyway and this procedure makes parametric models produce more accurate and considerably less model-dependent causal inferences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Large Sample Properties of Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects
Alberto Abadie,Guido W. Imbens +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed new methods for analyzing the large sample properties of matching estimators and established a number of new results, such as the following: Matching estimators with replacement with a fixed number of matches are not N 1/2 -consistent.
Journal ArticleDOI
Designing payments for environmental services in theory and practice: An overview of the issues
TL;DR: Payments for environmental services (PES) have attracted increasing interest as a mechanism to translate external, non-market values of the environment into real financial incentives for local actors to provide environmental services as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Common Property Institutions and Sustainable Governance of Resources
TL;DR: The authors examines the relative merits of statistical, comparative, and case study approaches to studying the commons and concludes that careful research design and sample selection, construction of causal mechanisms, and a shift toward comparative and statistical rather than single-case analyses are necessary for a coherent, empirically-relevant theory of the commons.
Journal ArticleDOI
Money for nothing? A call for empirical evaluation of biodiversity conservation investments.
TL;DR: The field of conservation policy must adopt state-of-the-art program evaluation methods to determine what works, and when, if it is to stem the global decline of biodiversity and improve the effectiveness of conservation investments.