Satellite-based deforestation alerts with training and incentives for patrolling facilitate community monitoring in the Peruvian Amazon.

ABSTRACT: Despite substantial investments in high-frequency, remote-sensed forest monitoring in the Amazon, early deforestation alerts generated by these systems rarely reach the most directly affected populations in time to deter deforestation. We study a community monitoring program that facilitated transfer of early deforestation alerts from the Global Forest Watch network to indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon and trained and incentivized community members to patrol forests in response to those alerts. The program was randomly assigned to 39 of 76 communities. The results from our analysis suggest that the program reduced tree cover loss, but the estimated effects from the experiment are imprecise: We estimate a reduction of 8.4 ha per community in the first year (95% CI [-19.4, 2.6])

SUBMITTER: Slough T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8307376 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature