Impacts of conservation incentives in protected areas: The case of Bolsa Floresta, Brazil
分析了巴西博尔萨·弗洛雷斯塔项目在15个多用途保护区中结合现金支付与生计投资的保护效果，发现项目优先选择低压力区域导致额外保护效应虽显著但较小，而在高毁林压力区效果更大。
Conditional incentives are a promising complementary approach to conserve tropical forests, for example, in multiple-use protected areas. In this paper we analyze the environmental impacts of Bolsa Floresta, a forest conservation program that combines direct conditional payments with livelihood-focused investments in 15 multiple-use reserves in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. We use grid-based data, nearest-neighbor matching, and panel data econometrics to compare three forest-related program outcomes – deforestation, degradation, and fires – of participating and non-participating reserve areas. Forest threats were low before and after treatment, because the program prioritized low-pressure sites. Thus, we find significant but small additional conservation effects from the implementation of the program. Notwithstanding, treatment effects are relatively larger in areas with higher deforestation pressure and higher potential agricultural income. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence showing that adverse spatial targeting of conservation incentives, i.e. disproportionally enrolling low–pressure sites, is a prime cause for the low additionality found in rigorous impact evaluations of many existing initiatives.