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Despite the prevailing assumption that hydrological flow variation is amplified and runoff increased with deforestation, evidence behind these claims is limited for very moist tropical regions. Data derived from field observations are needed to productively manage forested watersheds, optimize global climate models, and inform policymaking. First,...
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... second most effective in terms of frequency of positive outcomes was community-based management, with an 81% rate of positive responses, which was similar to but slightly less than market-based conservation (see Figure 11). This further supports our hypothesis that this policy type tends to be related to positive forest cover changes. However, most of these cases were concentrated in Mexico which may limit the utility of the conclusions as Mexico is well known as an unusual case in this regard ( Bray et al. 2003). Additionally, trends relating differential success to land tenure and proximity to protected areas were noted across ...
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... third most frequently successful policy type was protected areas, positive in 66% of cases (see Figure 11). Interestingly, a large proportion of cases studied this policy in combination with others. It was observed that strictness of governance contributed to the effectiveness of protected areas, however in some cases deforestation threatened protected area boundaries. What these cases had in common was there were other phenomena described as limiting or explanatory factors in the deforestation narrative, in many cases migration, strength of governance, or agricultural land use change. The overall positive result was somewhat robust in that it had successful cases in 6 countries, published over the course of 27 years. There is a global worry about protected areas acting as "paper parks" which do not work on the ground (Di Minin and Toivonen 2015), but these results imply that in this region at least, they are related to positive forest cover changes. Andam et al. (2008) Andam (2008), and Andam, Ferraro, and Hanauer (2013 use quasi-experimental methods to estimate additionality of the protected areas system in Costa Rica, finding about 10% avoided forest loss and < 20% reforestation. ...
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... also excluded studies that were based on aggregated data, reviews of large number of cases or studies examining very vague policies-such as neoliberalization or 70% of cases took place in Mexico and Costa Rica. However, when we normalized number of studies by units of forest area, Mexico had far fewer studies than most other represented countries with only 0.12 studies per 1000 km 2 ( Table 1). The two countries with the highest ratio of policy cases per unit forest area were due to vastly different reasons; while Costa Rica is a small country that is well studied per unit area of forest, El Salvador has few studies, but very little forested area left 2,738 km 2 (FAO 2016). There have been an increasing number of publications that fit these criteria since the early 1990s, however it appears that the trend may be leveling off in recent years (see Figure ...
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... found negative associations of agricultural subsidies in 83% of cases across five countries (see Figure 11), so we accepted the hypothesis that agricultural subsidies may report negative forest cover outcomes. The 3 positive cases were relating to incentives to search out alternate livelihoods (Schmook 2008) and mixed-vegetation systems utilizing native species (Chargoy Zamora 2004). The latter find that in a situation with shade coffee, policies that promote agroforestry may also be positive for forests. Less than 10% of the total studies examined agricultural ...
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... as early as the 1980's, a growing number of publications fit our selection criteria, increasing to about 15 publications per year in the most recent decade (see Figure 10). Only 4 journals contributed 4 or more cases to the dataset: Conservation Biology (5), Applied Geography (4), Human Ecology (4) and World Development (4). Of the studies present in journals with at least 2 studies, the most profuse ISI categories were Environmental Studies, with 26%, Economics with 11%, and Ecology and Forestry with 10% each ...
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... policy type most likely to report a positive forest cover outcome was market- based conservation, with zero negative cases (see Figure 11). However, there appear to be limitations to what is known about this finding due to only two study locations and methodological constraints. As these data were only drawn from cases in Costa Rica and Mexico, this scaling issue impedes the generation of generalizable knowledge applicable across the ...
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... associated successes attributed to these programs may be tied to the specific countries' abilities to implement policies. In this case, Costa Rica and Mexico, which account for the vast majority of cases of market-based conservation and community management (see Figure 11), have stable governments, are considered relatively wealthy, and have seen high success in forest conservation in general. Grima et al. (2016) classified a payment for ecosystem service scheme as "partially successful" if it met the program goals however had a tradeoff in terms of social, environmental, or economic outcomes. Their tiered approach reduced successful cases in their study by 30%, suggesting if we had done a similar correction we would have a less positive outcome. Many of our cases examined Mexico's national PES program, which will allegedly not create new contracts, meaning that in five years all contracts will have ended (Enciso 2015). This will provide an opportunity to test the frequent concern that this will crowd out land owners' intrinsic motivation to preserve forest (Fisher ...
