Green Infrastructure and Forest Loss in a Conflict-Affected Frontier: The Matebe Hydropower Project and the Limits of the Energy– Conservation Promise

Allamine Mahamat Moussa
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Allamine Mahamat Moussa: LEO - Laboratoire d'Économie d'Orleans [2022-...] - UO - Université d'Orléans - UT - Université de Tours - NEOLAiA - NEOLAiA European University = Université Européenne NEOLAÏA - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne

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Abstract: Green infrastructure-energy projects designed to deliver development benefits while easing pressure on natural resources-is widely promoted as a way to reconcile energy access with forest conservation in fragile, conflict-affected states, yet evidence on whether such projects deliver their promised environmental benefits remains scarce. This paper examines the Matebe run-of-river hydropower plant near Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a donor-backed project designed to displace charcoal, raise local incomes, and support peacebuilding. Using a harmonized 5 km grid-cell panel for 2010-2020, I implement a spatially explicit Difference-in-Differences design that separates the construction phase (2013-2015) from the operational phase (2016-2020). Three findings emerge: deforestation rises near the project during construction, consistent with accessinduced clearing along the corridor to the park boundary; the operational period shows no detectable environmental dividend, as nighttime lights reveal no local electrification response; and the estimated association depends heavily on the choice of comparison group, since distant peri-urban references are structurally unlike treated forest cells. The results indicate that the environmental risks of green infrastructure in forest frontiers are front-loaded into construction, while the promised conservation benefits may not materialize on policy-relevant timescales-with direct implications for how environmental safeguards are sequenced and how conservation infrastructure is evaluated.

Keywords: Conservation-development; C23; O55; O13; Q56; Q42; Difference-in-Differences Q23; Virunga National Park; Fragile and conflictaffected states; Energy access; Deforestation; Hydropower; Green infrastructure; Green infrastructure Hydropower Deforestation Energy access Fragile and conflictaffected states Conservation-development Virunga National Park Difference-in-Differences Q23 Q42 Q56 O13 O55 C23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-09-14
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05748783

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22746148

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