Forest policy diagnostics for Peru

This report is part of a wider inquiry into the intertwined challenges of climate change, deforestation and policy design, where global environmental goals depend on highly local realities. Forest loss remains a major driver of emissions, but its causes and trajectories vary widely across regions, shaped by governance systems, economic pressures and social dynamics. Moving beyond generic prescriptions, this study adopts a context-sensitive perspective that asks not only what policies exist, but how and where they are likely to be effective. In Peru, where much of the territory is still covered by relatively intact Amazonian forests, deforestation is less widespread but highly concentrated in specific frontier regions, often linked to smallholder agriculture and land-use change. This uneven geography makes it particularly important to match policy tools to the conditions on the ground. The report applies a diagnostic framework that connects patterns (archetypes) of forest change with the behavioural mechanisms that policies aim to influence—whether through incentives, regulation, social expectations or capacity-building. In doing so, it offers a structured way to understand why similar interventions can produce very different outcomes depending on context. Peru’s experience illustrates both the strengths of a comprehensive legal and institutional framework and the persistent challenges of implementation, coordination and targeting. By situating policy within the landscapes and actors it seeks to shape, the report provides an entry point into a more nuanced, evidence-based approach to reducing deforestation.

---

Download :

English

---

This works is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

---

---