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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.

This policy brief describes a social marketing 'Pride' campaign implemented by Pronatura Veracruz and Rare in the Actopan municipality of Veracruz, Mexico. The initiative aimed to increase landowner participation in Mexico's national Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program to protect tropical deciduous forests used as stopover habitats for migratory raptors, such as the peregrine falcon, against threats from urban development, cattle ranching, and sugar cane production.

This working paper, produced by the World Resources Institute's Gender Equity Practice and commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, examines the role of rural women in Nature-based Solutions (NbS). It identifies a gap in existing NbS literature, which typically prioritizes biophysical and technical aspects or treats households as uniform units, ignoring gender dynamics. The paper analyzes four NbS approaches—natural climate solutions (NCS), forest landscape restoration (FLR), ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA), and payments for ecosystem services (PES)—and uses three deep dives into PES projects to identify barriers and enablers for women's participation. The goal is to provide recommendations to donors, practitioners, and policymakers to enhance rural women's agency in NbS for sustainable agroecosystems.