Incentivising conservation in agricultural frontier regions presents complex challenges for long-term effectiveness. This scoping study investigates the potential and limitations of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) to prevent legal deforestation of surplus Legal Reserve (LR) areas in MATOPIBA, a rapidly expanding soybean-producing region in Brazil. Specifically, we examine the feasibility and constraints of different PES designs in high-opportunity-cost agricultural frontiers, discussing under which contextual conditions PES may or may not be a suitable conservation instrument. Using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with 81 soybean producers who possess native vegetation beyond legal requirements, we estimate willingness-to-accept (WTA) compensation under varying contract attributes—including payment size, permanence requirements, payment structure, and funding institutions. Results from mixed logit and latent class models reveal significant heterogeneity in preferences and motivations. High payments would be needed to engage producers likely to deforest, while low-cost participants often exhibit low ex-ante additionality. The requirement to convert surplus areas into permanent reserves (RPPNs) drastically increases WTA, often exceeding the likely opportunity cost of land. Social influence, especially peer familiarity with PES, significantly reduces compensation demands. Our findings highlight risks of adverse selection, limited permanence, and the illusion of cost-effectiveness when targeting only low-WTA landowners. We conclude that PES programs in agricultural frontier contexts must prioritise careful targeting, behavioural insight, and complementary strategies – such as land acquisition or peer-based outreach – to achieve meaningful outcomes, but may also in the current context not be an adequate conservation instrument.
Tag: deforestation
Jurisdictional REDD+ in theory and practice: Opportunities and risks for Indigenous Peoples and local communities in three initiatives
Key messages
- A jurisdictional approach should be reflected not only in the specific interventions associated with the REDD+ programme but also in the broader set of policies implemented across the jurisdiction – governments are often treating jurisdictional programmes as if they are just projects.
- Despite positive developments regarding engagement with Indigenous Peoples, local communities or their organizations in all three initiatives, none presents the spectrum of advantages and expected commitments of a jurisdictional approach.
- The Grupo Peru indigenous JREDD+ initiative is exceptional in many ways, yet it still needs the Peruvian government to address the drivers of deforestation and degradation and other risks to Indigenous lands.
- As the impetus for jurisdictional approaches continues to grow, governance needs to be re-centred in the approach to JREDD+ to combat deforestation and forest degradation and to secure the rights, well-being and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Revised September 2026
Does deforestation-free palm oil trade deliver value to local people? Evidence from Indonesia
The growing demand for palm oil has driven oil palm plantation expansion and the associated environmental, economic and social impacts at the landscape level in the tropics. This research describes how a high-risk forested landscape in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, reacts to the deforestation-free palm oil trade policies implemented by the United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries using value chain and system dynamics methods. Our modelling shows that global green initiatives and palm oil certification have a detrimental relationship with local economic reduction but a beneficial relationship with environmental outcomes achieving zero deforestation. Although green deals impose costs, compensation methods such as carbon trading, ecological fiscal transfers, and payments for environmental services, exist. Premium prices for palm oil are critical to offset losses. These insights inform Indonesian deforestation reduction efforts and serve as benchmarks for agricultural commodities in differing contexts.
Making the European Union Green Deal Benefit the Environment Society of the European Union and ASEAN
This chapter offers a detailed examination of the European Union Deforestation Regulation, a pivotal policy that governs market access for key agricultural commodities and is reshaping trade relations between the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Focusing on exports such as palm oil, timber, and coffee from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, the analysis employs system dynamics modelling and scenario development. A central finding is the significant opportunity presented by the regulation’s 2020 deforestation cut-off date. This means the rule’s initial impact is likely narrow, affecting only about 1% of existing palm oil plantations. This limited-scale effect may be similar for other ASEAN commodities, suggesting most established producers will not face immediate, large-scale disruption. However, the chapter equally details substantive threats, including high costs for compliance, product monitoring, and institutional development, alongside risks to export volumes and the livelihoods of millions. Learning from the lengthy implementation of the timber legality agreement, the chapter concludes that equitable outcomes and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals require fair negotiations underpinned by a balance of power. It strongly advocates for empowering formal bilateral bodies, such as the EU-Indonesia Working Group, to establish clear, phased, and actionable implementation pathways.
Biomass and successional changes in vegetation in a deforested area of Thailand
The plot for the study on vegetation changes was established in a deforested area of the Maeklong Watershed Research Station, Kanchanaburi, western Thailand. The plot (100 x 400 m2) was divided into four hundred 10 x 10 m2 sub-quadrats. We found six major vegetation types in the sub-quadrats: bamboo, woody shrub, banana (Musa acuminata), and three grasses Eupatorium ordotarum, Arundo donax and Bothrichloa sp. types. The aboveground biomass (kg m-2) of each dominant vegetation type was measured as follows: 4.1 for the bamboo type, 7.6 for the woody shrub type, 0.84 for the banana type, 2.0 for the E. ordotarum type, 2.3 for the A. donax type, and 0.8 for Bothrichloa type. The changes in dominant vegetation types have been monitored from 1992 to 1995. In 1992, the percentages of dominance for E. ordotarum, woody shrub, and A. donax were 39%, 20%, and 17% respectively. The transition matrices were calculated from the replacement patterns of vegetation types in the same quadrats. The vegetation change projected using the transition matrices suggested that the bamboo areas will increase while the woody shrubs and E. ordotarum areas will decrease in the future. Total bimass changes, calculating from the project, show that the total biomass of this pilot will increase due to the accumulation of woody shrub biomass. However, frequent fire disturbance will largely influence the speed of biomass accumulation in the plot.
Global cost estimates of reducing carbon emissions through avoided deforestation
Tropical deforestation is estimated to cause about one-quarter of anthropogenic carbon emissions, loss of biodiversity, and other environmental services. United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change talks are now considering mechanisms for avoiding deforestation (AD), but the economic potential of AD has yet to be addressed. We use three economic models of global land use and management to analyze the potential contribution of AD activities to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. AD activities are found to be a competitive, low-cost abatement option. A program providing a 10% reduction in deforestation from 2005 to 2030 could provide 0.3- 0.6 Gt (1 Gt = 1 X 10’5 g) CO2’yr-1 in emission reductions and would require $0.4 billion to $1.7 billion.yr-1 for 30 years. A 50% reduction in deforestation from 2005 to 2030 could provide 1.5-2.7 Gt CO2’yr-1 in emission reductions and would require $17.2 billion to $28.0 billion.yr-1. Finally, some caveats to the analysis that could increase costs of AD programs are described.
Why forests are important for global poverty alleviation: a spatial explanation
Forests have been declared important for the well-being of the poor because of the kinds of goods and services that they provide. We asked whether forests are important for the poor not only because of the kinds of goods and services they provide, but also because they tend to be located where the poor are. We conducted a spatial analysis to ascertain the degree of spatial association between poverty and forests in seven countries: Brazil, Honduras, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Indonesia, and Vietnam. For most of these countries, there was a significant positive correlation between high natural forest cover and high poverty rate (the percentage of the population that is poor) and between high forest cover and low poverty density (the number of poor per unit area). We explain the findings and discuss policy implications and topics for future research.
Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change
Places experience forest transitions when declines in forest cover cease and recoveries in forest cover begin. Forest transitions have occurred in two, sometimes overlapping circumstances. In some places economic development has created enough non-farm jobs to pull farmers off of the land, thereby inducing the spontaneous regeneration of forests in old fields. In other places a scarcity of forest products has prompted governments and landowners to plant trees in some fields. The transitions do little to conserve biodiversity, but they do sequester carbon and conserve soil, so governments should place a high priority on promoting them.
China’s forests: global lessons from market reforms (Chinese)
This book examines the experience of China’s forestry sector with respect to the full set of forest and nonforest policy reforrms introduced since 1978. The lessons of this book are important for China, and for the rest of the world as well. For China the analyses in each chapter provides rigorous evidence on those policies that have worked and on how well the have worked. The book consists of 10 chapters: 1. Hyde, W.F., Jintao Xu, Belcher, B. Introduction and Appendix table: policy reform in China’s forestry; 2. Liu Dachang, Edmund, D. Devolution as a means of expanding local forest management in South China: lessons from the past 20 years; 3. Jinlong Liu, Landell-Mills, N. Taxes and fees in the Southern collective forest region; 4. Runsheng Yin. Central characteristics of reform: measures of the effects of improved property rights, a stable policy environment, and environmental protection; 5. Daowei Zhang. Policy reform and investment in forestry; 6. Rozelle, S., Jikun Huang, Benziger, V. Forest exploitation and protection in reform China: assessing the impacts of policy and economic growth; 7. Yaoqi Zhang, Uusivuori, J., Kuuluvainen, J., Kant, S. Deforestation and reforestation in Hainan: roles of markets and institution; 8. Ruiz-Perez, M., Belcher, B., Maoyi Fu, Xiaosheng Yang. Forestry, poverty, and rural development: perspectives from the bamboo sector; 9. Sayer, J.A., Changjin Sun. Impacts of policy reforms on forest environments and biodiversity; 10. Hyde, W.F., Jintao Xu, Belcher, B., Runsheng Yin, Jinlong Liu. Conclusions and policy implications.
New Rights for forest-based communities?: understanding processes of forest tenure reform
This article reports on findings from a research project, in more than 30 sites in 10 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, aimed at analyzing cases where changes in formal tenure rights for forest-based communities had recently occurred or were in process. Though by far largest proportion of the world’s forests are owned by the state, over a quarter of forests in developing countries are now owned by or assigned to communities. This suggests, at least in some ways, a marked departure from the historic trend towards centralizing. The project, led by the Center for International Forestry Research in coordination with the Rights and Resources Initiative in 2006-2008, sought to identify issues and concerns from the perspective of socially and economically vulnerable groups that were seeking rights reforms. The objectives were to understand reform processes, particularly the extent to which community rights had improved in practice. This article reports on the analysis of three aspects of the reforms: the broad global trends shaping them, challenges in implementation and outcomes for livelihoods and forests.