IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/spdwps/1201.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ex-post Evaluation of Forest Conservation Policies Using Remote Sensing Data: An Introduction and Practical Guide

Author

Listed:
  • Allen Blackman

Abstract

Rigorous, objective evaluation of forest conservation policies in developing countries is needed to ensure that the limited financial, human, and political resources devoted to these policies are put to good use. Yet such evaluations remain uncommon. Recent advances in conservation best practices, the widening availability of high-resolution remotely sensed land-cover data, and the dissemination of geographic information system capacity have created significant opportunities to reverse this trend. This paper provides a nontechnical introduction and practical guide to a relatively low cost method that relies on remote sensing data to support ex-post analysis of forest conservation policies. It describes the defining features of this approach, catalogues and briefly reviews the studies that have used it, discusses the requisite data, explains the principal challenges to its use and the empirical strategies to overcome them, provides some practical guidance on modeling choices, and describes in detail two recent case studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Allen Blackman, 2012. "Ex-post Evaluation of Forest Conservation Policies Using Remote Sensing Data: An Introduction and Practical Guide," SPD Working Papers 1201, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness (SPD).
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:spdwps:1201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/document.cfm?id=36758048
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Müller & Darla K. Munroe, 2005. "Tradeoffs between Rural Development Policies and Forest Protection: Spatially Explicit Modeling in the Central Highlands of Vietnam," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(3).
    2. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    3. Sims, Katharine R.E., 2010. "Conservation and development: Evidence from Thai protected areas," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 94-114, September.
    4. Sierra, Rodrigo & Russman, Eric, 2006. "On the efficiency of environmental service payments: A forest conservation assessment in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 131-141, August.
    5. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra Todd, 1998. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 261-294.
    6. Ho, Daniel E. & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2007. "Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 199-236, July.
    7. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2006. "Large Sample Properties of Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 235-267, January.
    8. Maureen Cropper & Jyotsna Puri & Charles Griffiths, 2001. "Predicting the Location of Deforestation: The Role of Roads and Protected Areas in North Thailand," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(2), pages 172-186.
    9. Paul Ferraro & Merlin Hanauer, 2011. "Protecting Ecosystems and Alleviating Poverty with Parks and Reserves: ‘Win-Win’ or Tradeoffs?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 269-286, February.
    10. Klaus Deininger & Bart Minten, 2002. "Determinants of Deforestation and the Economics of Protection: An Application to Mexico," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(4), pages 943-960.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gwenolé Le Velly & Céline Dutilly, 2016. "Evaluating Payments for Environmental Services: Methodological Challenges," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Leonardo Corral & Maja Schling & Cassandra Rogers & Janice Cumberbatch & Fabian Hinds & Naijun Zhou & Michele H. Lemay, 2016. "The Impact of Coastal Infrastructure Improvements on Economic Growth: Evidence from Barbados," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 95978, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Mohebalian, Phillip M. & Aguilar, Francisco X., 2016. "Additionality and design of forest conservation programs: Insights from Ecuador's Socio Bosque Program," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 103-114.
    4. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer & Wolff, Hendrik, 2014. "Payment for Ecosystem Services from Forests," IZA Discussion Papers 8179, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Corral, Leonardo & Schling, Maja & Rogers, Cassandra & Cumberbatch, Janice & Hinds, Fabian & Zhou, Naijun & Lemay, Michele H., 2016. "The Impact of Coastal Infrastructure Improvements on Economic Growth: Evidence from Barbados," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 7860, Inter-American Development Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blackman, Allen, 2013. "Evaluating forest conservation policies in developing countries using remote sensing data: An introduction and practical guide," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-16.
    2. Blackman, Allen, 2015. "Strict versus mixed-use protected areas: Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 14-24.
    3. Estifanos, Tafesse Kefyalew & Polyakov, Maksym & Pandit, Ram & Hailu, Atakelty & Burton, Michael, 2020. "The impact of protected areas on the rural households’ incomes in Ethiopia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Canavire-Bacarreza, Gustavo & Hanauer, Merlin M., 2013. "Estimating the Impacts of Bolivia’s Protected Areas on Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 265-285.
    5. Jones A.M & Rice N, 2009. "Econometric Evaluation of Health Policies," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Pfaff, Alexander & Robalino, Juan & Lima, Eirivelthon & Sandoval, Catalina & Herrera, Luis Diego, 2014. "Governance, Location and Avoided Deforestation from Protected Areas: Greater Restrictions Can Have Lower Impact, Due to Differences in Location," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 7-20.
    7. Seonho Shin, 2022. "Evaluating the Effect of the Matching Grant Program for Refugees: An Observational Study Using Matching, Weighting, and the Mantel-Haenszel Test," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 103-133, March.
    8. Fukui Hideki, 2023. "Evaluating Different Covariate Balancing Methods: A Monte Carlo Simulation," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 205-326, June.
    9. Canavire-Bacarreza, Gustavo & Diaz-Gutierrez, Julian Eduardo & Hanauer, Merlin M., 2018. "Unintended consequences of conservation: Estimating the impact of protected areas on violence in Colombia," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 46-70.
    10. Katharine Sims, 2014. "Do Protected Areas Reduce Forest Fragmentation? A Microlandscapes Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(2), pages 303-333, June.
    11. Federico Biagi & Daniele Bondonio & Alberto Martini, 2015. "Counterfactual Impact Evaluation of Enterprise Support Programmes. Evidence from a Decade of Subsidies to Italian Firm," ERSA conference papers ersa15p1619, European Regional Science Association.
    12. Apps, Patricia & Mendolia, Silvia & Walker, Ian, 2013. "The impact of pre-school on adolescents’ outcomes: Evidence from a recent English cohort," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 183-199.
    13. Ramírez-Álvarez, Aurora Alejandra, 2019. "Land titling and its effect on the allocation of public goods: Evidence from Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    14. Yergeau, Marie-Eve & Boccanfuso, Dorothée & Goyette, Jonathan, 2017. "Reprint of: Linking conservation and welfare: A theoretical model with application to Nepal," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 229-243.
    15. Fatema, Naureen, 2019. "Can land title reduce low-intensity interhousehold conflict incidences and associated damages in eastern DRC?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Tommaso Nannicini, 2007. "Simulation-based sensitivity analysis for matching estimators," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 334-350, September.
    17. Esaka, Taro, 2013. "Evaluating the effect of de facto pegs on currency crises," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 943-963.
    18. Sonia SCHWARTZ & Jean Galbert ONGONO OLINGA & Eric Nazindigouba KERE & Pascale COMBES MOTEL & Jean-Louis COMBES & Johanna CHOUMERT & Ariane Manuela AMIN, 2014. "A spatial econometric approach to spillover effects between protected areas and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon," Working Papers 201406, CERDI.
    19. Sánchez-Braza, Antonio & Pablo-Romero, María del P., 2014. "Evaluation of property tax bonus to promote solar thermal systems in Andalusia (Spain)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 832-843.
    20. Arriagada, Rodrigo & Villaseñor, Adrián & Rubiano, Eliana & Cotacachi, David & Morrison, Judith, 2018. "Analysing the impacts of PES programmes beyond economic rationale: Perceptions of ecosystem services provision associated to the Mexican case," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PA), pages 116-127.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    forest conservation policy; evaluation; literature review; reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:idb:spdwps:1201. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.