Potential conservation gains from improved protected area management in the Brazilian Amazon

Protected areas (PAs) are important policy instruments for forest conservation, but it is unclear if improved management can increase PA effectiveness. In Brazil, formal management plans are required to be in place shortly after the creation of a PA. This requirement is rarely enforced and, as a result, several PAs undergo many years without approved plans. We take advantage of this variation among PAs to study the impact of management plans on deforestation. We provide estimates from two quasi-experimental evaluation approaches based on the generalization of the difference-in-differences estimator: (1) matching-based methods for time-series cross-sectional data analysis and (2) the generalized synthetic control (GSC) method. We find weak, yet generally consistent, evidence across these two methods suggesting that PAs with approved management plans protect forests more effectively over time. Significant impact estimates from the matching-based approach ranged more widely than the GSC method (0.01%–0.09% versus 0.04%–0.05% of avoided deforestation per year, respectively). The effect size of these impacts is relatively substantial given that the average annual forest loss from our PA sample was 0.07% (±0.40%). To the extent that PAs with approved management plans reflect actual differences in PA management quality, our findings suggest that investments in improving PA management could result in positive conservation gains over time.