Unconditional Transfers and Tropical Forest Conservation: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Unconditional conservation payments are increasingly used by non‐governmental conservation organizations to further their environmental objectives. One key objective in many conservation projects that use such unconditional payments schemes is the protection of tropical forest ecosystems in buffer zone areas around protected parks where the scope of instating mandatory restrictions is more limited. We use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of unconditional livelihood payments to local communities on land use outside a protected area—the Gola Rainforest National Park—which is a biodiversity hotspot on the border of Sierra Leone and Liberia. High resolution RapidEye satellite imagery from before and after the intervention was used to determine land use changes in treated and control villages. We find support for the hypothesis that unconditional payments, in this setting, increase land clearance in the short run. The study constitutes one of the first attempts to use evidence from a randomized control trial to evaluate the efficacy of conservation payments and provides insights for further research.

Experimental evaluation of the impact of a payment for environmental services program on deforestation

“…Despite calls for more randomized experiments in conservation impact evaluation, their use remains rare. Watershared is one of only three randomized impact evaluations of landscape‐scale conservation interventions we are aware of (the others are: Jayachandran et al, ; Wilebore, Voors, Bulte, Coomes, & Kontoleon, in press). There are ethical and practical challenges meaning that full RCTs are not always appropriate (Baylis et al, ; Deaton & Cartwright, ; Ferraro, ; Pynegar et al, ).…”

Characterizing and Evaluating Integrated Landscape Initiatives

“…Notably, the two strongly integrated ILIs (i.e., participation and certification) scored better performance metrics within and across domains than the partially integrated approaches (i.e., agriculture and conservation). Overall, ILIs secured highest performance metric scores for coordination and mediation outcomes and did least well 24 Duchelle et al, 39 and Wilebore et al 62 delivering to local livelihoods. Our findings confirm that the current approach of referring to ILIs under one definition precludes an improved understanding of which sets of strategies work best for achieving integrated conservation and development outcomes.…”

Hogyan birkózhat meg a COVID-19 utáni gazdaságpolitika a biológiai sokféleség csökkenésével?

“…Más kapcsolódó programok (például a feltételes készpénzátutalások) kapcsán kimutatták, hogy a közvetlen kifizetések -a kontextustól függően -pozitív és negatív irányba is megváltoztathatják a viselkedést és annak környezetre gyakorolt hatását, ezért gondosan kell őket megtervezni. Egy indonéziai feltételes készpénzátutalási program, bár nem természet-védelmi célokra tervezték, csökkentette az erdőirtást a program felülvizsgálati eredményei szerint [52], ugyanakkor Sierra Leone-ban egy hasonló program az erdőirtás arányának növekedésével járt [53]. Összességében a kifizetések hatékonysága -akár feltételekhez kötik őket, akár nem -attól függ, hogy megfelelő módon strukturálják-e az ösztönzőket és hogy legitimnek tekintik-e helyben a kifizetésektől remélt környezeti előnyöket [54].…”