Forest Conservation and Slippage: Evidence from Mexico's National Payments for Ecosystem Services Program

We investigate a Mexican federal program that compensates landowners for forest protection. We use matched controls from the program applicant pool to establish counterfactual deforestation rates. Deforestation was reduced by 50% in enrolled parcels, but expected average clearing rates without the p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land economics 2012-11, Vol.88 (4), p.613-638
Main Authors: Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M., Shapiro, Elizabeth N., Sims, Katharine R. E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Benefits
Conservation
Deforestation
Ecosystems
Environmental conservation
Forest conservation
Forest cover
Forest management
Forests
Government programmes
Joint ownership
Land use
Landowners
Latin America
Markets
Mexicans
Mexico
Natural resources
Nature conservation
Payment
Payments
Poverty
Property
Studies
Sustainable agriculture
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Description
Summary:We investigate a Mexican federal program that compensates landowners for forest protection. We use matched controls from the program applicant pool to establish counterfactual deforestation rates. Deforestation was reduced by 50% in enrolled parcels, but expected average clearing rates without the program were low (0.8% per year), suggesting modest total avoided deforestation benefits. We test for two types of slippage: increased deforestation on other property belonging to program recipients and increased deforestation within markets where there are high levels of program participation. We find evidence of both, with substitution impacts reducing program effectiveness in common properties by about 4% on average.
ISSN:0023-7639
1543-8325
DOI:10.3368/le.88.4.613