What Drives Size Reductions for Protected Areas? Evidence about PADDD from across the Brazilian Amazon

Derya Keles, Philippe Delacote, Alexander Pfaff, Siyu Qin and Michael B. Mascia

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: Protected areas (PAs) have been the most widely used tool to conserve ecosystem services. New PAs are created every year and the effective PAs block some economic development. Yet that opportunity cost of conservation leads PAs to have isolated locations and even to suffer considerable PA degazettements, downsizings and degradation (jointly ‘PADDD’). Adding to a sparse literature on PADDD, we assess some drivers of PAs’ size reductions, i.e., degazettements and downsizings. We base our empirical efforts upon a simple model of size reductions that result from interactions between agencies with differing objectives, conservation versus development. Gradients across space for the agency benefits and costs yield predictions about where each agency is most against, or for, size reductions for PAs. Analyzing Brazilian Amazon data from a relatively new and growing global data set from PADDDtracker, we find size reductions are influenced by: distance to cities and roads, i.e., transport that affects private profits and public enforcement costs; PA size, which affects enforcement costs; and previous deforestation in a PA, which lowers impacts of PADDD.

Keywords: conservation; PADDD; Land-use change; Brazilian Amazon; public policy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O21 Q56 Q57 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-ict
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2019-12

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