Does the Selective Erasure of Protected Areas Raise Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?

L'effacement sélectif des zones protégées augmente-t-il la déforestation en Amazonie brésilienne ?

Derya Keles (), Alexander Pfaff and Michael Mascia
Additional contact information
Derya Keles: UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Michael Mascia: Conservation International

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Protected areas (PAs) are the leading policy to lower deforestation. Yet resistance by land users leads PAs to be created in remote sites, lowering impact. Resistance continues after PA creation, with both illegal deforestation and advocacy for PADDD, that is, reducing PA status (downgrading) or PA size (partial or full erasure, downsizing or degazettement). For the Brazilian Amazon, we estimate 2010–15 forest impacts of 2009–12 PA erasures, on average and for distinct states. Before panel-DID regression, to find similar controls we matched using static characteristics and 8–10 years of pretreatment deforestation. PA erasures should raise deforestation if erased PAs faced and blocked pressures. Consistent with this, three conditions for "environmental selection" yielded little short-run impact from PADDD: low pressures, unblocked higher pressures, and pressures blocked less by those PAs selected for erasures. Yet for "development selection," with PA erasures in sites with pressures plus enforcement, PADDD yielded increased deforestation.

Keywords: Deforestation; Protected Area; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-07-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2023, 10 (4), pp.1121-1147. ⟨10.1086/723543⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04345214

DOI: 10.1086/723543

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().