@article{b37398f51721467f85a8bcd1d639e1bf,
title = "Cash for carbon: A randomized trial of payments for ecosystem services to reduce deforestation",
abstract = "We evaluated a program of payments for ecosystem services in Uganda that offered forestowning households annual payments of 70,000 Ugandan shillings per hectare if they conserved their forest. The program was implemented as a randomized controlled trial in 121 villages, 60 of which received the program for 2 years. The primary outcome was the change in land area covered by trees, measured by classifying high-resolution satellite imagery. We found that tree cover declined by 4.2% during the study period in treatment villages, compared to 9.1% in control villages. We found no evidence that enrollees shifted their deforestation to nearby land. We valued the delayed carbon dioxide emissions and found that this program benefit is 2.4 times as large as the program costs.",
author = "Seema Jayachandran and {De Laat}, Joost and Lambin, {Eric F.} and Stanton, {Charlotte Y.} and Robin Audy and Thomas, {Nancy E.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank R. Chang, A. Favela, S. Kagera, M. Kearns, L. Kim, P. Marimo, E. Moscoe, S. Oh, A. Persaud, C. Rowe, J. Stapleton, and Z. Zeng for outstanding research assistance; Chimpanzee Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Trust (including L. Ajarova and P. Hatanga), Government of Uganda National Environment Management Authority (including F. Ogwal), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) (including D. Parkerson and P. Raffler), International Institute for Environment and Development (including M. Grieg-Gran), and Nature Harness Initiatives (including B. Biryahwaho) for collaborating on the project; R. Dizon-Ross, K. Jack, C. Kinnan, M. Lipscomb, L. Lockwood, D. Marvin, S. Pagiola, K. Sims, and several seminar participants for helpful comments; and the Global Environment Facility, through the United Nations Environment Programme, and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation for funding. S.J. also thanks the National Science Foundation for funding (SES-1156941). S.J. is an affiliate and board member of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, whose activities include disseminating research findings based on randomized controlled trials conducted by its affiliates, such as this study. The study received institutional review board (IRB) approval from Northwestern University IRB (IRB 00000418, 00000419, 00000736, 00000420, 00002600, and 00005003, with IRB Protocol STU00055401); Stanford IRB (IRB 00000348, 00000349, 00000350, 00000351, 00004593, 00004947, 00005136, and 00006208, with IRB Protocol 19468); IPA IRB-USA (IRB 00006083, with IRB Protocol 258.10July-002); and Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (IRB Protocol SS2234). Informed consent was obtained from study subjects, and the nature and possible consequences of the study were explained to them. The data used in the study are available through Harvard Dataverse (doi:10.7910/DVN/MGMDYN). The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the partner organizations, funders, or their members. All errors are our own. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2017 The Authors.",
year = "2017",
month = jul,
day = "21",
doi = "10.1126/science.aan0568",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "357",
pages = "267--273",
journal = "Science",
issn = "0036-8075",
publisher = "American Association for the Advancement of Science",
number = "6348",
}