Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia
Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are instruments which seem well suited for forest conservation. However, their impact on reducing deforestation might be weakened by negligible additionality and leakage effects; the first refers to the low variation in net deforestation rates even in the ab...
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Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/7/906 |
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doaj-9cae3b6241b449b4a1fdc0ec1b0dceb82021-07-23T13:41:17ZengMDPI AGForests1999-49072021-07-011290690610.3390/f12070906Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian AmazoniaFernando Gordillo0Paul Eguiguren1Margret Köthke2Rubén Ferrer Velasco3Peter Elsasser4Thünen Institute of International Forestry and Forest Economics, 21031 Hamburg, GermanyCarrera de Ingeniería Forestal, Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales del Ambiente y Biodiversidad, Universidad Nacional de Loja, Loja 110111, EcuadorThünen Institute of International Forestry and Forest Economics, 21031 Hamburg, GermanyThünen Institute of International Forestry and Forest Economics, 21031 Hamburg, GermanyThünen Institute of International Forestry and Forest Economics, 21031 Hamburg, GermanyPayments for Environmental Services (PES) are instruments which seem well suited for forest conservation. However, their impact on reducing deforestation might be weakened by negligible additionality and leakage effects; the first refers to the low variation in net deforestation rates even in the absence of PES, and the second refers to the displaced deforestation behavior to other areas not covered by PES. For the case of Ecuador, we examine both issues by assessing the historical deforestation trend of selected PES-enrolled areas and that of their adjacent areas to identify deforestation patterns before and after PES implementation. We analyze the additional effect of PES on reducing deforestation by comparison to a baseline as well as to comparable reference sites at two different spatial scales. We also analyze potential leakage effects of PES by comparing deforestation development in adjacent areas. We show that PES has achieved marginally low conservation impacts in enrolled areas with an average difference in net deforestation rates of 0.02 percent points over a period of 28 years. Overall, PES-enrolled areas depict lower annual net deforestation rates than unenrolled areas, albeit at a negligible rate, and there is also some evidence that deforestation decreased in adjacent areas after PES implementation. Additionally, there exists a statistically significant linear increasing deforestation trend in adjacent areas as distance increases from the PES-enrolled area. Our empirical results, however, raise the suspicion that the choice of PES-enrolled areas might have been influenced by self-selection.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/7/906deforestationadditionalityleakageself-selectionPESEcuador |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Fernando Gordillo Paul Eguiguren Margret Köthke Rubén Ferrer Velasco Peter Elsasser |
spellingShingle |
Fernando Gordillo Paul Eguiguren Margret Köthke Rubén Ferrer Velasco Peter Elsasser Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia Forests deforestation additionality leakage self-selection PES Ecuador |
author_facet |
Fernando Gordillo Paul Eguiguren Margret Köthke Rubén Ferrer Velasco Peter Elsasser |
author_sort |
Fernando Gordillo |
title |
Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia |
title_short |
Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia |
title_full |
Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia |
title_fullStr |
Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Additionality and Leakage Resulting from PES Implementation? Evidence from the Ecuadorian Amazonia |
title_sort |
additionality and leakage resulting from pes implementation? evidence from the ecuadorian amazonia |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Forests |
issn |
1999-4907 |
publishDate |
2021-07-01 |
description |
Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are instruments which seem well suited for forest conservation. However, their impact on reducing deforestation might be weakened by negligible additionality and leakage effects; the first refers to the low variation in net deforestation rates even in the absence of PES, and the second refers to the displaced deforestation behavior to other areas not covered by PES. For the case of Ecuador, we examine both issues by assessing the historical deforestation trend of selected PES-enrolled areas and that of their adjacent areas to identify deforestation patterns before and after PES implementation. We analyze the additional effect of PES on reducing deforestation by comparison to a baseline as well as to comparable reference sites at two different spatial scales. We also analyze potential leakage effects of PES by comparing deforestation development in adjacent areas. We show that PES has achieved marginally low conservation impacts in enrolled areas with an average difference in net deforestation rates of 0.02 percent points over a period of 28 years. Overall, PES-enrolled areas depict lower annual net deforestation rates than unenrolled areas, albeit at a negligible rate, and there is also some evidence that deforestation decreased in adjacent areas after PES implementation. Additionally, there exists a statistically significant linear increasing deforestation trend in adjacent areas as distance increases from the PES-enrolled area. Our empirical results, however, raise the suspicion that the choice of PES-enrolled areas might have been influenced by self-selection. |
topic |
deforestation additionality leakage self-selection PES Ecuador |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/7/906 |
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AT fernandogordillo additionalityandleakageresultingfrompesimplementationevidencefromtheecuadorianamazonia AT pauleguiguren additionalityandleakageresultingfrompesimplementationevidencefromtheecuadorianamazonia AT margretkothke additionalityandleakageresultingfrompesimplementationevidencefromtheecuadorianamazonia AT rubenferrervelasco additionalityandleakageresultingfrompesimplementationevidencefromtheecuadorianamazonia AT peterelsasser additionalityandleakageresultingfrompesimplementationevidencefromtheecuadorianamazonia |
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