Katso artikkeli

Networks of protected areas (PAs) form the backbone for biodiversity conservation worldwide. The effectiveness of protected areas has been studied and it has been shown that confounding factors, such as remoteness and accessibility, correlated with both presence of protection and extractive behaviors, affect the outcomes. We investigated the effectiveness of Madagascar's PA network in decreasing deforestation pressures, using a novel counterfactual methodology, accounting for distance to roads, rivers, major cities and altitude, slope and annual rainfall. The assessment was independently conducted for two different time periods, 1990–2000 and 2000–2010, and for Madagascar's three major forest types. We found that PAs were effective to some extent in reducing deforestation and that some of this decrease can be attributed to the presence of PAs, not just to the confounding factors rendering the land …