Conservation performance of different conservation governance regimes in the Peruvian Amazon

Judith Schleicher,Nigel Leader-Williams,Tatsuya Amano,Carlos A Peres,William Llactayo

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-10736-w

Abstract

State-controlled protected areas (PAs) have dominated conservation strategies globally, yet their performance relative to other governance regimes is rarely assessed comprehensively. Furthermore, performance indicators of forest PAs are typically restricted to deforestation, although the extent of forest degradation is greater. We address these shortfalls through an empirical impact evaluation of state PAs, Indigenous Territories (ITs), and civil society and private Conservation Concessions (CCs) on deforestation and degradation throughout the Peruvian Amazon. We integrated remote-sensing data with environmental and socio-economic datasets, and used propensity-score matching to assess: (i) how deforestation and degradation varied across governance regimes between 2006–2011; (ii) their proximate drivers; and (iii) whether state PAs, CCs and ITs avoided deforestation and degradation compared with logging and mining concessions, and the unprotected landscape. CCs, state PAs, and ITs all avoided deforestation and degradation compared to analogous areas in the unprotected landscape. CCs and ITs were on average more effective in this respect than state PAs, showing that local governance can be equally or more effective than centralized state regimes. However, there were no consistent differences between conservation governance regimes when matched to logging and mining concessions. Future impact assessments would therefore benefit from further disentangling governance regimes across unprotected land.

Highlights

The rapid conversion and degradation of tropical forests is arguably one of the most significant challenges of contemporary global change
The relative performance of different conservation governance types compared to alternative forms of land use has rarely been comprehensively assessed and little attention has been paid to forest degradation
All three types of conservation governance regimes significantly avoided rates of deforestation and forest degradation compared to analogous areas in the wider unprotected landscape

Summary

Introduction

The rapid conversion and degradation of tropical forests is arguably one of the most significant challenges of contemporary global change. Our study has three main objectives: (i) assess how deforestation and forest degradation varied across protected and unprotected forest governance types throughout the Peruvian Amazon; (ii) determine the proximate environmental and socio-economic predictors of deforestation and forest degradation (Supplementary Table S1); and (iii) control for these predictors to assess whether state PAs, ITs and/or CCs have avoided deforestation and forest degradation compared to three unprotected forest governance counterfactuals. These counterfactuals comprise logging concessions, mining concessions and the wider unprotected landscape (defined as the land beyond formally-recognized and nationally-mapped governance regimes) (Fig. 1). Our study area covers 74% of the entire Peruvian Amazon, excluding areas covered by water bodies, clouds and shadows (see Methods)

Methods

Results

Conclusion