The rapidly expanding network of roads into the Amazon is permanently altering the world’s largest tropical forest. Most proposed road projects lack rigorous impact assessments or even basic economic justification. This study analyzes the expected environmental, social and economic impacts of 75 road projects, totaling 12 thousand kilometers of planned roads, in the region. We find that all projects, although in different magnitudes, will negatively impact the environment. Forty-five percent will also generate economic losses, even without accounting for social and environmental externalities. Canceling economically unjustified projects would avoid 1.1 million hectares of deforestation and US$ 7.6 billion in wasted funding for development projects. For projects that exceed a basic economic viability threshold, we identify the ones that are comparatively better not only in terms of economic return but also have lower social and environmental impacts. We find that a smaller set of carefully chosen projects could deliver 77% of the economic benefit at 10% of the environmental and social damage, showing that it is possible to have efficient tradeoff decisions informed by legitimately determined national priorities.

Bolivia es uno de los países más vulnerables al cambio climático por sus condiciones físicas y nivel de desarrollo. Inserto en los esfuerzos mundiales de mitigación de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, el país define medidas a través de las NDCs. En este estudio se estiman los costos y beneficios económicos que estas medidas generan, y se observa que aquéllas enfocadas en los sectores energía y forestal podrían generar un crecimiento adicional del 2.7% en el PIB proyectado al año 2050. Esto representa un valor presente de US$ 15,500 millones adicionales y la generación de empleo neto. El costo de implementación de las medidas representaría el 30% del PIB a valor presente, y su financiamiento dependería de fuentes internas y externas. Finalmente, se proyecta que la postergación de las metas de reducción de deforestación previstas hasta 2030 conllevaría una emisión de más de 830 millones de toneladas adicionales de CO2eq hasta el año 2050, con ganancias marginales en el PIB.

In this paper, we estimate the causal relationship between protected areas and poverty in Chile from 1982 to 2002. Chile is part of the coalition of countries committed to protecting 30% of the planet by 2030; a decision that implies increasing the number of protected areas in the country. As a result of this decision, grows the national debate about the potential impacts of protected areas on the economy and society. By estimating the causal effect of protected areas on poverty, we aim to contribute to this debate in Chile. We use panel data and a quasi-experimental approach to estimate the causal effect. We find that establishing a protected area covering at least 17% of a unit’s terrestrial area causes a reduction of 0.216 standard deviations in the poverty index. This result is not sensitive to arbitrary implementation choices. Additionally, we show that the effect is driven by the Patagonia region, the part of Chile with the largest amount of new protected areas during the time frame of this study. Besides showing the benefits of protected areas to society, we hope the findings presented here might also be used to attract new investments and financial support to protected areas currently underfunded in Chile.

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