Digital Commons Network^™

Establishing legal protection for forest areas is the most common policy used to limit forest loss. This article evaluates the effectiveness of Indonesian forest protected areas introduced between 2000 and 2012. Specifically, we explore how the effectiveness of these parks varies over space. Protected areas have mixed success in preserving forest, and it is important for conservationists to understand where they work and where they do not. Observed differences in the estimated treatment effect of protection may be driven by several factors. Indonesia is particularly diverse, with the landscape, forest and forest threats varying greatly from region to region, and …

With the potential expansion of forest conservation programs spurred by climate-change agreements, there is a need to measure the extent to which such programs achieve their intended results. Conventional methods for evaluating conservation impact tend to be biased because they do not compare like areas nor do they account for spatial relations. We assess the effect of a conservation initiative that combined designation of protected areas with payments for environmental services to conserve overwintering habitat for the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in Mexico us a spatial-matching estimator which matches covariates among polygons and their neighbors, to. We measured avoided forest …