Impactos de las políticas de conservación en los bosques secos tropicales: análisis regionales y con enfoque espacial ante diferentes impulsores sociales y naturales del uso de la tierra

This executive summary describes a project evaluating the effectiveness of forest reserves and payments for ecosystem services (PSAs) in reducing deforestation within tropical dry forests in Costa Rica and Brazil, emphasizing the need to control for biophysical and socioeconomic drivers to avoid overestimating policy impacts.

• Conventional methods of evaluating conservation impacts in Costa Rica have substantially overestimated the amount of avoided deforestation by more than 65% because they failed to control for observable covariates correlated with both protection and deforestation.
• The effectiveness of protected areas in Costa Rica varies significantly based on location and geography: areas within 85 km of San Jose prevented over 4% of forest clearing between 1986 and 1997, while those further away prevented less than 1%. Additionally, protection within 7.5 km of national roads blocked approximately 5% of clearing, and land with slopes under 7.12 degrees avoided 14% deforestation, whereas areas far from roads or on high slopes showed no statistically significant protection.
• The perceived success of forest reserves may be skewed because they are often established in locations that are already less threatened, such as areas that are inaccessible or on steep slopes.
• To accurately assess the impact of eco-payment policies, it is necessary to control for non-policy drivers, including biophysical factors like soil quality, rainfall, and slopes, as well as socioeconomic factors such as distance to roads and markets.

APA

Pfaff, A., Robalino, J., Santo, M. M. D. E., Salazar, S., Villalobos, L., Coronel, L., & Herrera, L. D. (2024). Impactos de las políticas de conservación en los bosques secos tropicales: análisis regionales y con enfoque espacial ante diferentes impulsores sociales y naturales del uso de la tierra. Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. https://iai.int/en/impactos-de-las-politicas-de-conservacion-en-los-bosques-secos-tropicales-analisis-regionales-y-con-enfoque-espacial-ante-diferentes-impulsores-sociales-y-naturales-del-uso-de-la-tierra-sgp-hd-008/

Chicago

Pfaff, Alexander, Juan Robalino, Mario Marcos do Espirito Santo, Sebastian Salazar, Laura Villalobos, Lorena Coronel, and Luis Diego Herrera. Impactos de las políticas de conservación en los bosques secos tropicales: análisis regionales y con enfoque espacial ante diferentes impulsores sociales y naturales del uso de la tierra. Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, 2024. https://iai.int/en/impactos-de-las-politicas-de-conservacion-en-los-bosques-secos-tropicales-analisis-regionales-y-con-enfoque-espacial-ante-diferentes-impulsores-sociales-y-naturales-del-uso-de-la-tierra-sgp-hd-008/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Pfaff |first1=Alexander |last2=Robalino |first2=Juan |last3=Santo |first3=Mario Marcos do Espirito |last4=Salazar |first4=Sebastian |last5=Villalobos |first5=Laura |last6=Coronel |first6=Lorena |last7=Herrera |first7=Luis Diego |title=Impactos de las políticas de conservación en los bosques secos tropicales: análisis regionales y con enfoque espacial ante diferentes impulsores sociales y naturales del uso de la tierra |publisher=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |date=16 September 2024 |url=https://iai.int/en/impactos-de-las-politicas-de-conservacion-en-los-bosques-secos-tropicales-analisis-regionales-y-con-enfoque-espacial-ante-diferentes-impulsores-sociales-y-naturales-del-uso-de-la-tierra-sgp-hd-008/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{pfaff2024impactos, author = {Pfaff, Alexander and Robalino, Juan and Santo, Mario Marcos do Espirito and Salazar, Sebastian and Villalobos, Laura and Coronel, Lorena and Herrera, Luis Diego}, title = {{Impactos de las políticas de conservación en los bosques secos tropicales: análisis regionales y con enfoque espacial ante diferentes impulsores sociales y naturales del uso de la tierra}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://iai.int/en/impactos-de-las-politicas-de-conservacion-en-los-bosques-secos-tropicales-analisis-regionales-y-con-enfoque-espacial-ante-diferentes-impulsores-sociales-y-naturales-del-uso-de-la-tierra-sgp-hd-008/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }