Protected areas reduced poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand
Loading...
Links to Files
Collections
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2010-05-24
Type of Work
Department
Program
Citation of Original Publication
Andam, Kwaw S., Paul J. Ferraro, Katharine R. E. Sims, Andrew Healy, and Margaret B. Holland. “Protected Areas Reduced Poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 22 (June 2010): 9996–10001. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0914177107.
Rights
This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
Subjects
Abstract
As global efforts to protect ecosystems expand, the socioeconomic impact of protected areas on neighboring human communities continues to be a source of intense debate. The debate persists because previous studies do not directly measure socioeconomic outcomes and do not use appropriate comparison groups to account for potential confounders. We illustrate an approach using comprehensive national datasets and quasi-experimental matching methods. We estimate impacts of protected area systems on poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand and find that although communities near protected areas are indeed substantially poorer than national averages, an analysis based on comparison with appropriate controls does not support the hypothesis that these differences can be attributed to protected areas. In contrast, the results indicate that the net impact of ecosystem protection was to alleviate poverty.