This document discusses three case studies evaluating the impact of conservation efforts on local communities' well-being. 1) An experimental study using random assignment found no measurable impact of payments for ecosystem services on water quality in 120 communities. 2) A quasi-experimental study in Madagascar found no overall impact of community forest management on economic well-being, but impacts varied by education level. 3) A participatory evaluation found community forest management both positively and negatively influenced different priorities like access to land, agriculture, and education. The approach provided nuanced information on local perceptions rather than overall impacts.

1. Julia P G Jones, School of Environment, Natural
Resources and Geography, Bangor University
@juliapgjones, julia.jones@bangor.ac.uk
How does conservation impact local people’s well-
being (and how can we know)?

2. 2
“Poverty is not the lack of
money it is the lack of
opportunity to realize
ones full potential as a
human being”
Amartya Sen
Well-being is the absence
of poverty

3. 3

4. 4
If conservation is so important to human wellbeing-
how come there isn’t more of correlation between
ecosystem condition and poverty?

5. The environmentalist paradox………
▪ BUT things are getting better (for most people) by
most measures
5
www.gapminder.org
google images
Lifeexpectancy(years)
Income per capita Income per capita
Lifeexpectancy(years)

6. 6
The rural poor (especially the poorest)
have high dependence on ecosystem
services.
Conservation efforts can have negative
local welfare impacts.
Does this mean that those of us who care about
poverty reduction needn’t be interested in
conservation?

7. 7
Conservation efforts can have negative local welfare
impacts
Timothy Njagi
Anna Kika

8. 8
How does conservation impact local
people’s well-being?
(and how can we know?)

9. “Those who cannot learn
from history are doomed
to repeat it”
Georges Santayana 1906

10. A simple comparison of outcomes in units before and after
exposure to an intervention is invalid without a control
before after
StatusinoutcomeofinterestWhy is impact evaluation hard?

11. A simple comparison of outcomes in units before and after
exposure to an intervention is invalid without a control
before after
StatusinoutcomeofinterestWhy is impact evaluation hard?

12. A simple comparison of units exposed and not exposed to an
intervention is also invalid
Not exposed exposed
StatusinoutcomeofinterestWhy is impact evaluation hard?

13. A simple comparison of units exposed and not exposed to an
intervention is also invalid
Not exposed exposed
StatusinoutcomeofinterestWhy is impact evaluation hard?

14. 3 specific questions
14
1)What is the impact of Payment for Ecosystem Services on water
quality (experimental approach)?
2)What is the impact of community forest management on economic
well-being? (quasi-experimental)
3)What is the impact of community forest management on subjective
well-being? (participatory impact evaluation)

15. 1) What is the impact of Payment for Ecosystem
Services on water quality?
15
Edwin Pynegar
Experimental

16. 16
Has the scheme improved water
quality?

17. Intervention Control
Random
allocation of
population to
treatment and
control
Experimental approach: units are randomly allocated to
treatment of control (so only difference is the treatment)
Therefore
simple
comparison of
treatment and
control needed

18. Intervention Control
Random
allocation of
population to
treatment and
control
Experimental approach: units are randomly allocated to
treatment of control (so only difference is the treatment)
Therefore
simple
comparison of
treatment and
control needed

19. 19
120 communities
allocated to control or
intervention
Water quality
measured before the
intervention (2010)
and after (2015)

20. 20
2010 2015
Treatment Control ControlTreatment
meancoliformnumber(in5ml)

21. 21
meancoliformnumber(in5ml)
2010 2015
Treatment Control ControlTreatment

22. 22

23. 23
Edwin Pynegar
▪ The experiment revealed no
measurable affect of the scheme on
water quality.
▪ The baseline data was needed to
reveal this.
▪ Of course large scale randomised
experiments like this are seldom
possible in the field……
What is the impact of Payment for Ecosystem
Services on water quality?
Experimental
Source: Pynegar submitted

24. 24
Ranaivo Rasolofoson
2) What has been the net impact of Community Forest
Management on economic well-being in Madagascar?
By 2014 CFM covered nearly 15% of
Madagascar’s forests.
Quasi-experimental
CFM has twin aims: conservation &
improving local wellbeing

25. Intervention Control
Pre-
matching
comparison
Post-
matching
comparison
Matching
Quasi-experimental approach: units in
intervention group are “matched” with control
units which are as similar as possible
Source: Rasolofoson et al (2016)
Matching should be done on conditions at baseline

26. Intervention: those households within
a commune that has 10% or more of
its area covered by CFM (+ sensitivity
test using a threshold of 25%)
Control: those households within a
commune that has less than 1% of its
area covered by CFM
Outcome measure: Household consumption
Dataset: National
Statistics agency
surveys
Source: Rasolofoson et al (2016)

27. Household
characteristics
Site
characteristics
Age of HH
head
Roadless
volume
Gender of HH
head
Population
density
Literacy of HH
head
Presence of
children <5
years
Suitability for
irrigated rice
Elevation
Matched on a range of HH and site (commune) characteristics

28. 2005
We dealt with the missing baseline using ‘falsification test’
Baseline (3096 HH)
Endline (4117 HHs)
All CFM established by 2007
▪ Compared HH in 2005 dataset which
would later become CFM HH with
those who wouldn’t.
▪ Matched ‘soon to be’ CFM HHs with
‘never to be’ CFM HH using same
matching procedure.
▪ If matching is sufficient, consumption
in post matched groups should be
similar.
2010 2012

29. No measurable overall affect of CFM on living standards.
BUT impact varies with education
29
Source: Rasolofoson et al (in press)
Education of HH head (years)
Effectonannualconsumption($)

30. 30
What is the net impact of Community Forest
Management on economic well-being in Madagascar?
No measureable net impact BUT
there are winners and losers
This type of evaluation gives a
result attractive to policy makers
BUT can only look at very narrow
range of outcomes.

31. 3) What is the impact of Community Forest
Management on subjective well-being?
31
Ranaivo Rasolofoson
Participatory impact evaluation

32. 32
What are the 3 most important priorities in your life?
What is the relative importance of each priority?
Please rate your performance in each priority (very bad,
bad, good, very good)
Participatory impact evaluation
Does working for ICRAF contribute positively,
negatively or have no influence?
Subjective wellbeing

33. 33
What are the 5 most important priorities in your
life?
access to land
health
Education for our
children
Rice
Family
Source: Rasolofoson et al (submitted)

34. 34
Participatory Impact valuation
Does CFM contribute to your performance in
each domain?
Negative Impacts Positive Impacts
Source: Rasolofoson et al (submitted)
Just look at grey bars

35. 35
CFM
‘Land’ seen as negatively influenced: “Population has grown
rapidly and we are not allowed to enlarge our agricultural
lands. Thus, available lands are not enough to provide for the
people”
Source: Rasolofoson et al (submitted)
‘Agriculture’ seen as positively impacted (increased sense of
security of tenure)

36. 36
What is the impact of Community Forest Management
on subjective well-being?
Subjective measure of well-being means we can’t evaluate if there is a
net positive or negative impact BUT…..
Strength lies in wealth of
information on what local
people perceive as important
and how they attribute cause.

37. Overall conclusions……
Conservation does have local welfare impacts and as conservationists we need to understand these.
Different evaluation approaches have pros and cons….
Experiments are seldom possible. Quasi-experimental often seen as robust and more valid than participatory
approaches BUT really depends on the situation.

38. References..
▪ Pynegar, E., Aquith, N., Gibbons, J., Jones, J.P.G. Evaluating the
Impact of Payments for Environmental Services using a
Randomised ControlTrial. Submitted.
▪ Rasolofoson, R.A., P.J. Ferraro, G. Ruta, M.S Rasamoelina, P.L
Randriankolona, H.O. Larsen and J.P.G Jones (in press). Impacts of
Community Forest Management on human economic well-being
across Madagascar. Conservation Letters.
▪ Rasolofoson, R.A., M.R. Nielsen and J.P.G Jones.The potential of
the Global Person Generated Index (GPGI) for evaluating the
perceived impact of conservation interventions on subjective well-
being. Revision submitted.
38
Photos by Julia Jones, Lyn Jones, Neal Hockley, Mahesh Poudyal, Patrick Botazzii, Edwin
Pynegar

39. 39
Thank you for listening…….
For more information see www.p4ges.org or contact
julia.jones@bangor.ac.uk

40. 40
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53. 53
CFM
“The forest management association built the school
and we were responsible for paying the teacher’ salary.
But we are so poor that we could not keep paying …
and he left the village”
Source: Rasolofoson et al (submitted)