Abstract
We examine the conservation effects attributable to changes in the size of community-governed protected areas (PAs) by adopting a generalized difference-in-difference (DID) design with a two-way fixed effect regression model and synthetic control methods. Panel data from the extraordinary datasets of the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPAs) and the Red List of International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are used for 32 Sub-Saharan African countries in this study. Our generalized DID estimates show that countries with community-governed PAs have reduced the IUCN Red List threat level by 17% for mammals. We also find stronger evidence of the effect of community-governed PAs on the IUCN threat level using synthetic control method that allows us to match the “intervention countries” with those countries that exhibit similar pre-intervention threat level. Our results are robust on alternate specifications in which we exploit variations in the cumulative size of the designated PAs differentiated by the IUCN governance types. We also compare the effect of strictly state-governed PAs with community-governed PAs. Our findings provide evidence in support of recent qualitative studies that find positive responses of community participation towards common goods that carry potential economic incentives. This paper contributes to the idea that inclusive environmental policies and legislations yield environmental gains not at the cost of social exclusion.
Highlights
Conservation of biological diversity is one of the key sustainable development goals (SDGs) that seeks to protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of ecosystem services and reduce threat to biodiversity [1]
Community-governed protected areas (PAs) can be used as an effective conservation policy that enables countries to achieve biodiversity conservation outcomes not at the cost of social exclusion
Following the generalized DID approach, we find that on average, countries with a significant increase in cumulative size of community-governed PAs are likely to decreases the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat to mammals by nearly 17% as compared to those countries where community-governed PAs size is less than half of the total PAs
Summary
Conservation of biological diversity is one of the key sustainable development goals (SDGs) that seeks to protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of ecosystem services and reduce threat to biodiversity [1]. Given the importance of biodiversity, there have been growing efforts to conserve wildlife in developing countries that inhabit most of the world’s biodiversity One of these efforts is the designation of protected areas (PAs) by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) through various donor support programs. There are rising concerns in developing countries that increasing size of protected areas leads to the systematic exclusion of local communities from natural resource use that results into the failure of biodiversity conservation projects [5]. Many development experts maintain that the systematic inclusion of the local communities in the governance of protected areas under certain agreements can guarantee the sustainability of natural resource use [2].
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