Welfare and forest cover impacts of incentive based conservation: Evidence from Kenyan community forest associations

Boscow Okumu and Edwin Muchapondwa

World Development, 2020, vol. 129, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines whether offering landless forest-adjacent communities options to grow appropriate food crops inside forest reserves during early stages of reforestation programmes increases incomes of low-income households and conserve forests. We consider the forest cover and household welfare impacts of a unique incentive scheme in Kenya known as the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS). PELIS seeks to deepen community participation in forestry, and improve the livelihoods of adjacent communities. Using cross sectional data collected from 22 Community Forest Associations and 406 households, we use propensity score matching methods to evaluate the mean impact of the scheme on forest cover and household welfare. We also assess the heterogeneous impacts of the scheme on household welfare using an endogenous quantile treatment effects model. The results show that on average, PELIS has a significant and positive impact on the welfare of participating households (estimated between 15.09% and 28.14%) and on forest cover (between 5.53% and 7.94%). However, the scheme cannot be defended on equity grounds as it has inequitable distributional impacts on household welfare. The scheme raises welfare of groups other than the poorest and marginalized sections of the community. Our observations from the field blame elite capture for this outcome.

Keywords: Household welfare; Heterogeneity; Selection; Matching; QTE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 Q23 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:129:y:2020:i:c:s0305750x20300164

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104890

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