TY - JOUR
T1 - Consequences of Protected Areas for Household Forest Extraction, Time Use, and Consumption
T2 - Evidence from Nepal
AU - Howlader, Aparna
AU - Ando, Amy W.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Erica Myers, Kathy Baylis, Carl Nelson, Payal Shah, Phillip Garcia, Hope Michelson, and Xian Fan Bak for their invaluable comments and suggestions. This paper has also benefited from comments by seminar and conference participants at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Meeting, Association of Environmental and Resource Economics Meeting, and Southern Economics Association Annual Meeting. We would like to thank Chet Bahadur Roka from Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal for making the NLSS data available to us. All errors are our own. This work was supported in part by USDA-NIFA Multistate Hatch W4133 Grant #ILLU-470-353 and NSF Grant #1339944.
Funding Information:
We thank Erica Myers, Kathy Baylis, Carl Nelson, Payal Shah, Phillip Garcia, Hope Michelson, and Xian Fan Bak for their invaluable comments and suggestions. This paper has also benefited from comments by seminar and conference participants at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Meeting, Association of Environmental and Resource Economics Meeting, and Southern Economics Association Annual Meeting. We would like to thank Chet Bahadur Roka from Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal for making the NLSS data available to us. All errors are our own. This work was supported in part by USDA-NIFA Multistate Hatch W4133 Grant #ILLU-470-353 and NSF Grant #1339944.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2020/4/1
Y1 - 2020/4/1
N2 - Many forest protected areas (PAs) are located in developing countries, where forests are a major source of food and fuel. Thus, biodiversity conservation may have unintended consequences on welfare of people in local communities. To explore this issue, we examine the effects of the new PAs in Nepal established during 1995–2003. Using the Nepal Living Standard Survey collected in 1995/1996 and 2003/2004, we evaluate the effects of these new PAs on household consumption, wood collection, and time use. Our estimates suggest that the establishment of PAs reduce the average wood collection by 20–40% compared to the period prior to PA establishment, with greater impact when PAs are strictly managed. We find evidence that households adjust to the new PAs with at least modest shifts to fuel purchased in market but not by using fuel conserving stoves, and that PAs are ineffective when climate makes fuelwood for heating essential or if households are in regions with large dependence on wood as a fuel. Finally, while wood collection reductions could lower household welfare, we find no evidence that PAs trigger either large decreases or increases in total consumption or consumption of food.
AB - Many forest protected areas (PAs) are located in developing countries, where forests are a major source of food and fuel. Thus, biodiversity conservation may have unintended consequences on welfare of people in local communities. To explore this issue, we examine the effects of the new PAs in Nepal established during 1995–2003. Using the Nepal Living Standard Survey collected in 1995/1996 and 2003/2004, we evaluate the effects of these new PAs on household consumption, wood collection, and time use. Our estimates suggest that the establishment of PAs reduce the average wood collection by 20–40% compared to the period prior to PA establishment, with greater impact when PAs are strictly managed. We find evidence that households adjust to the new PAs with at least modest shifts to fuel purchased in market but not by using fuel conserving stoves, and that PAs are ineffective when climate makes fuelwood for heating essential or if households are in regions with large dependence on wood as a fuel. Finally, while wood collection reductions could lower household welfare, we find no evidence that PAs trigger either large decreases or increases in total consumption or consumption of food.
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Impact evaluation
KW - Land conservation
KW - Nepal
KW - Protected area
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U2 - 10.1007/s10640-020-00407-2
DO - 10.1007/s10640-020-00407-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85081620554
VL - 75
SP - 769
EP - 808
JO - Environmental and Resource Economics
JF - Environmental and Resource Economics
SN - 0924-6460
IS - 4
ER -