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Collective property rights lead to secondary forest growth in the Brazilian Amazon.

Authors :
Baragwanath, Kathryn
Bayi, Ella
Shinde, Nilesh
Source :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 5/30/2023, Vol. 120 Issue 22, p1-9. 27p.
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

Forests serve a crucial role in our fight against climate change. Secondary forests provide important potential for conservation of biodiversity and climate change mitigation. In this paper, we explore whether collective property rights in the form of indigenous territories (ITs) lead to higher rates of secondary forest growth in previously deforested areas. We exploit the timing of granting of property rights, the geographic boundaries of ITs and two different methods, regression discontinuity design and differencein-difference, to recover causal estimates. We find strong evidence that indigenous territories with secure tenure not only reduce deforestation inside their lands but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas. After receiving full property rights, land inside ITs displayed higher secondary forest growth than land outside ITs, with an estimated effect of 5% using our main RDD specification, and 2.21% using our difference-in-difference research design. Furthermore, we estimate that the average age of secondary forests was 2.2 y older inside ITs with secure tenure using our main RDD specification, and 2.8 y older when using our difference-indifference research design. Together, these findings provide evidence for the role that collective property rights can play in the push to restore forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00278424
Volume :
120
Issue :
22
Database :
Academic Search Index
Journal :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
164142823
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2221346120