Money for something? Investigating the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions in the Northern Plains of Cambodia
type: CreativeWork
description: Despite substantial investments in biodiversity conservation interventions over the past two decades there is relatively little evidence about whether interventions work, and how they work. Whether an intervention is deemed to “work” depends upon how goals are defined and then measured, which is complex given that different stakeholders have very different expectations for any intervention (including species conservation, habitat protection, human wellbeing or participation goals), and because the process of measuring impacts can involve a simplification of more sophisticated ideals. These questions were investigated for a suite of biodiversity conservation interventions, implemented during 2005-2012 in the Northern Plains landscape of Cambodia. The interventions included the establishment of Protected Areas (PAs), village-level land-use planning, and three different types of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) instituted within the PAs. The PES programmes were (1) direct payments for species protection; (2) community-managed ecotourism linked to wildlife and habitat protection; and (3) payments to keep within land-use plans. The impact evaluation compared the results of each of the interventions with appropriate matched controls, considering both environmental and social impacts between 2005-2011. Both PAs and PES delivered additional environmental outcomes: reducing deforestation rates significantly in comparison with controls and protecting species for those cases where appropriate data was available. PAs increased security of access to land and forest resources for local households, benefiting forest resource users, but restricting households’ ability to expand and diversify their agriculture. PES impacts on household wellbeing were related to the magnitude of the payments provided: the two higher-paying PES programmes had significant positive impacts for participants, whereas a lower-paying programme that targeted biodiversity protection had no detectable…
abstract: Despite substantial investments in biodiversity conservation interventions over the past two decades there is relatively little evidence about whether interventions work, and how they work. Whether an intervention is deemed to “work” depends upon how goals are defined and then measured, which is complex given that different stakeholders have very different expectations for any intervention (including species conservation, habitat protection, human wellbeing or participation goals), and because the process of measuring impacts can involve a simplification of more sophisticated ideals. These questions were investigated for a suite of biodiversity conservation interventions, implemented during 2005-2012 in the Northern Plains landscape of Cambodia. The interventions included the establishment of Protected Areas (PAs), village-level land-use planning, and three different types of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) instituted within the PAs. The PES programmes were (1) direct payments for species protection; (2) community-managed ecotourism linked to wildlife and habitat protection; and (3) payments to keep within land-use plans. The impact evaluation compared the results of each of the interventions with appropriate matched controls, considering both environmental and social impacts between 2005-2011. Both PAs and PES delivered additional environmental outcomes: reducing deforestation rates significantly in comparison with controls and protecting species for those cases where appropriate data was available. PAs increased security of access to land and forest resources for local households, benefiting forest resource users, but restricting households’ ability to expand and diversify their agriculture. PES impacts on household wellbeing were related to the magnitude of the payments provided: the two higher-paying PES programmes had significant positive impacts for participants, whereas a lower-paying programme that targeted biodiversity protection had no detectable…
author: Clements, Thomas
language: en
keywords: Biodiversity Conservation, Payments for Environmental Services (PES), Protected Areas, Conservation and Development, Poverty Studies, Impact Evaluation, Cambodia, Bird Conservation
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/493f54aa-76e4-46f1-9251-02a85d104947/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2013-04-16
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:10Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.16406