Conference Agenda

Community-based forestry is widely promoted as a means to balance conservation with local development, yet its impact remains uncertain. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where over half of the Congo Basin rainforest is located, local community forest concessions (LCFCs) have expanded since 2017 as part of the country’s commitment to protect 30\% of its land by 2030. LCFCs are expected to curb deforestation by securing tenure, encouraging sustainable land use, and fostering local stewardship. However, weak governance, funding constraints, economic motivations driven by livelihood needs, and misalignment between local and external conservation priorities pose risks to their effectiveness. We examine whether these concessions have influenced deforestation and forest degradation by leveraging annual, high-resolution spatial data on forest cover change and employing a staggered difference-in-differences approach alongside synthetic control methods.

Our analysis yields robust estimates indicating no statistically significant effect of LCFCs on deforestation or forest degradation up to this point. Moreover, we do not find evidence of heterogeneous effects when considering different types of LCFCs, including those supported by development-focused or conservation-focused NGOs, or those located in areas with varying population densities. The absence of immediate impacts does not imply failure, nor does it rule out the possibility of unintended negative effects, as the early dynamics of LCFCs are not necessarily representative of their medium and long-term outcomes. However, we provide evidence that the legal transfer of tenure did not lead to sustained increased deforestation or forest degradation in the initial years.

This lack of early impact may also reflect the slow pace of LCFC implementation. Many concessions are still in the early stages of formalization, as evidenced by the limited number of publicly available simple management plans, a key requirement for effective land-use governance. As LCFCs continue to expand, understanding their early dynamics is crucial for refining policies that enhance their effectiveness. Continued tracking and analysis of LCFCs will be critical in determining whether, and under what conditions, community forest management can contribute to effective forest conservation in the DRC.

Governments have long faced potential trade-offs between economic development and protecting nature. This is particularly true for tropical and sub-tropical islands where most mangroves are found. Motivated by Trinidad and Tobago’s central government’s prior hotel development plans from 2017 to 2019, we employ a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate residents’ preferences for mangrove ecosystem services (ES) in the Bon Accord Lagoon and Buccoo Bay, Tobago. In the context of a choice between the conservation of mangroves and a hypothetical hotel development in the Bon Accord Lagoon area. We use a Hierarchical Bayesian Logit Model, exploring two distinct payment horizons, 5 and 25-years, done independently and also merged in models that allow for choice uncertainty and individual characteristics. We find that respondents have consistent willingness-to-pay (WTP) for mangrove ES and exhibit general insensitivity to the payment horizons due to perceived disbenefits associated with mangrove loss from hotel development. The DCE and an ex-post (follow-up) survey suggests that there is strong public support for policies aimed at long-term protection of mangroves.

Access to markets also means access to urban centers, which has multiple influences on household decisions. This study demonstrates that the combined effect of “urban access” on deforestation is ambiguous and can change over time. By modeling deforestation over 24 years on approximately 8,700 farm properties in the Brazilian Amazon, we find the relationship between distance to urban centers and deforestation changed from negative to positive around 2004. Further investigation suggests that the diminishing role of transportation cost in farm-gate price combined with increasing enforcement of environmental laws and urban labor market opportunities triggered the change in the effect of distance on deforestation.

Deforestation in the tropics is a major driver of climate change. This paper studies the role of local structural change for reducing deforestation in developing countries and emerging economies. The paper focuses on tourism in Brazil as a case study. The paper combines an empirical econometric analysis with a quantitative spatial model, utilizing a granular and rich dataset that includes satellite imagery, individual-level census micro-data, establishment-level tourism data, and administrative social insurance data, among other sources. Our findings indicate that domestic and international tourism in Brazil substantially increased employment in tourism-related industries but lowered local wages, with its employment effects spilling over into other industries and nearby locations. Furthermore, simulations with our calibrated model suggest that tourism-related traded services reduced deforestation by providing local employment opportunities outside agriculture, including in the Amazon region. Overall, our results suggest that tourism helps to preserve natural land equivalent to the total deforested area over the last 20 years, illustrating the potential environmental benefits of local structural change.