Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach

Annual forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon had in 2012 declined to less than 5,000 sqkm, from over 27,000 in 2004. Mounting empirical evidence suggests that changes in Brazilian law enforcement strategy and the related governance system may account for a large share of the overall success in curbing...

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Autores principales: Börner, J., Marinho, E., Wunder, Sven
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/95069
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author Börner, J.
Marinho, E.
Wunder, Sven
author_browse Börner, J.
Marinho, E.
Wunder, Sven
author_facet Börner, J.
Marinho, E.
Wunder, Sven
author_sort Börner, J.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Annual forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon had in 2012 declined to less than 5,000 sqkm, from over 27,000 in 2004. Mounting empirical evidence suggests that changes in Brazilian law enforcement strategy and the related governance system may account for a large share of the overall success in curbing deforestation rates. At the same time, Brazil is experimenting with alternative approaches to compensate farmers for conservation actions through economic incentives, such as payments for environmental services, at various administrative levels. We develop a spatially explicit simulation model for deforestation decisions in response to policy incentives and disincentives. The model builds on elements of optimal enforcement theory and introduces the notion of imperfect payment contract enforcement in the context of avoided deforestation. We implement the simulations using official deforestation statistics and data collected from field-based forest law enforcement operations in the Amazon region. We show that a large-scale integration of payments with the existing regulatory enforcement strategy involves a tradeoff between the cost-effectiveness of forest conservation and landholder incomes. Introducing payments as a complementary policy measure increases policy implementation cost, reduces income losses for those hit hardest by law enforcement, and can provide additional income to some land users. The magnitude of the tradeoff varies in space, depending on deforestation patterns, conservation opportunity and enforcement costs. Enforcement effectiveness becomes a key determinant of efficiency in the overall policy mix.
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spelling CGSpace950692025-06-17T08:24:24Z Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach Börner, J. Marinho, E. Wunder, Sven deforestation conservation ecosystem services Annual forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon had in 2012 declined to less than 5,000 sqkm, from over 27,000 in 2004. Mounting empirical evidence suggests that changes in Brazilian law enforcement strategy and the related governance system may account for a large share of the overall success in curbing deforestation rates. At the same time, Brazil is experimenting with alternative approaches to compensate farmers for conservation actions through economic incentives, such as payments for environmental services, at various administrative levels. We develop a spatially explicit simulation model for deforestation decisions in response to policy incentives and disincentives. The model builds on elements of optimal enforcement theory and introduces the notion of imperfect payment contract enforcement in the context of avoided deforestation. We implement the simulations using official deforestation statistics and data collected from field-based forest law enforcement operations in the Amazon region. We show that a large-scale integration of payments with the existing regulatory enforcement strategy involves a tradeoff between the cost-effectiveness of forest conservation and landholder incomes. Introducing payments as a complementary policy measure increases policy implementation cost, reduces income losses for those hit hardest by law enforcement, and can provide additional income to some land users. The magnitude of the tradeoff varies in space, depending on deforestation patterns, conservation opportunity and enforcement costs. Enforcement effectiveness becomes a key determinant of efficiency in the overall policy mix. 2015 2018-07-03T11:02:20Z 2018-07-03T11:02:20Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/95069 en Open Access Public Library of Science Börner, J., Marinho, E., Wunder, S.. 2015. Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon : a spatial probabilistic modeling approach. PLoS ONE, 10 (2) : e0116846. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116846
spellingShingle deforestation
conservation
ecosystem services
Börner, J.
Marinho, E.
Wunder, Sven
Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
title Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
title_full Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
title_fullStr Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
title_full_unstemmed Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
title_short Mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the Brazilian Amazon: a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
title_sort mixing carrots and sticks to conserve forests in the brazilian amazon a spatial probabilistic modeling approach
topic deforestation
conservation
ecosystem services
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/95069
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