The impact of paying for forest conservation on perceived tenure security in Ecuador

Kelly W Jones,Rodrigo Arriagada,Margaret Holland,Nicolle Etchart,Lisa Naughton-Treves

doi:10.1111/conl.12710

Abstract

AbstractWe study the impact of Ecuador's national forest conservation incentives program on reported land conflicts. Data come from a survey of >900 households located within 49 indigenous and Afro‐Ecuadorian communities holding communal conservation contracts. We use quasi‐experimental methods to test for relationships between program participation and changes in land conflicts. Respondents reported that the program reduced land conflicts when households resided in communities with de facto communal tenure arrangements (vs. de facto semiprivate arrangements). We find no evidence that the conservation incentive program increased land conflicts. These results counter concerns that conservation payments undermine land tenure security; in some cases perceived tenure security is improved.

Highlights

The conservation community is increasingly attendant to the relationship(s) between tenure security and the success of conservation interventions (Robinson et al, 2018)
Reported land conflicts by households residing in Socio Bosque-enrolled communities decreased by around 11% while in non-Socio Bosque communities, decreases were closer to 7%
Even within the context of these nationallevel changes, we found evidence that Socio Bosque participation led to reductions in reported land conflicts for some households, indicating a strengthened sense of some aspects of land tenure security

Summary

Introduction

The conservation community is increasingly attendant to the relationship(s) between tenure security and the success of conservation interventions (Robinson et al, 2018). There are few impact evaluations testing whether participation in PES programs changes perceived tenure security. One exception is a comparative study that estimated the effect of tenure clarification projects that were part of the PES intervention on perceived tenure security (Sunderlin et al, 2018). In this paper we provide national-level evidence on the impact of a payment-based forest conservation program on perceived tenure security. We study the relationship between participation in Ecuador’s Socio Bosque program and reported land conflicts by households living in indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities holding communal conservation contracts. Launched in 2008, Socio Bosque has enrolled 16,000 km of

Methods

Results

Conclusion