Muons penetrate much further than X-rays, they do essentially zero damage, and they are provided for free by the cosmos.
Image credit: Science Source/Digital Globe.
Edited by Jonah Busch, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Ruth S. DeFries February 14, 2017 (received for review February 26, 2016)
Significance
Developing countries are increasingly granting local communities legal title to forests. Almost a third of forests in the global south are now managed by local communities, more than twice the share currently found in protected areas. However, we know little about the effects of titling on forest clearing and disturbance, which remain urgent problems. We use community-level longitudinal data derived from high-resolution satellite images, along with statistical techniques that control for confounding factors, to measure the effect of titling indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Results indicate that titling significantly reduces both clearing and disturbance, at least in the short term. The implication is that awarding formal land titles to local communities can protect forests.
Abstract
Developing countries are increasingly decentralizing forest governance by granting indigenous groups and other local communities formal legal title to land. However, the effects of titling on forest cover are unclear. Rigorous analyses of titling campaigns are rare, and related theoretical and empirical research suggests that they could either stem or spur forest damage. We analyze such a campaign in the Peruvian Amazon, where more than 1,200 indigenous communities comprising some 11 million ha have been titled since the mid-1970s. We use community-level longitudinal data derived from high-resolution satellite images to estimate the effect of titling between 2002 and 2005 on contemporaneous forest clearing and disturbance. Our results indicate that titling reduces clearing by more than three-quarters and forest disturbance by roughly two-thirds in a 2-y window spanning the year title is awarded and the year afterward. These results suggest that awarding formal land titles to local communities can advance forest conservation.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: blackman{at}rff.org.
Author contributions: A.B., L.C., and E.S.L. designed research; A.B. and L.C. performed research; G.P.A. contributed forest cover change data; A.B. analyzed data; and A.B. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. J.B. is a Guest Editor invited by the Editorial Board.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1603290114/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Titling indigenous communities protects forests
Article Classifications
- Social Sciences
- Sustainability Science
See related content:
Sign up for Article Alerts
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov.
One protein seems to play a key role in touch sensitivity for flytraps and other meat-eating plants.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Kuttelvaserova Stuchelova.
Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert explore why conversations almost never end when people want them to.
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.