While waiting for the answer: A critical review of meta-studies of tropical forest management

•We examine meta-studies of forest management and the impact on forest conservation.•Meta-studies discuss conservation in protected areas or in community forests.•When comparing the results of the two management types, definition problems emerge.•Deforestation differences might be explained better by economic development.

This paper assesses the existing meta-studies of forestry conservation. Most of meta-studies have focused on either the performance of protected areas or the community managed forests. Only one article has directly compared the performance of the two management forms. Porter-Bolland et al. (2012) claim that community managed forests presented a lower mean deforestation rate than protected areas. We found several statistical problems and problems with definitions in all meta-studies, and we argue that the data available, not the least for community managed forest, does not allow for genuine global comparison. Using similar measuring techniques and same definitions when comparing the two management forms are necessities when trying to reach a general conclusion about which management form is best.