Conservation and development: Evidence from Thai protected areas

Protected areas are a key tool for conservation policy but their economic impacts are not well understood. This paper presents new evidence about the local effects of strictly protected areas in Thailand, combining data on socioeconomic outcomes from a poverty mapping study with satellite-based estimates of forest cover. The selective placement of protected areas is addressed by controlling for characteristics which drove both protection and development and by instrumenting for protection with priority watershed status. The estimates indicate that protected areas increased average consumption and lowered poverty rates, despite imposing binding constraints on agricultural land availability. Socioeconomic gains are likely explained by increased tourism in and around protected areas. However, net impacts are largest at intermediate distances from major cities, highlighting that the spatial patterns of both costs and benefits are important for efforts to minimize conservation-development tradeoffs.