Comparing the effectiveness of conservation instruments in the Colombian Andes biodiversity hotspot
Paulo Arévalo, Boston University, parevalo@bu.edu
Eric Bullock, US Forest Service, eric.bullock@usda.gov
Ana Reboredo Segovia, Boston University, rsana@bu.edu
Christoph Nolte, Boston University, chrnolte@bu.edu (Presenter)
We combined remote sensing and social science methods to estimate the relative effectiveness of conservation instruments (land acquisitions vs. payments for environmental services) in protecting threatened forest habitat in the Colombian Andes. We used ensemble modeling and time-series classification of Landsat data to develop a novel map of 25-year forest change in the Colombian Andes that discriminates between forest types of different habitat value: mature forest, disturbed forest, regrowth, dry forests, and forest plantations. We then used cadaster data, a unique dataset of publicly-financed conservation instruments and counterfactual inferential methods to examine and predict how causal effects of each instrument vary across landscapes and over time. The project also produced the first remote-sensing-based map of one of the most threatened ecosystems in Colombia: the Colombian dry forest.
Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 1-8
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Poster Session 1
Session Date: Tue (May 9) 5:00-7:00 PM
CCE Program: LCLUC