A thesis submitted to the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy of Central European University in part fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Science Assessing the ecological effectiveness of protected areas in Cambodia: A quasi-experimental counterfactual estimation of avoided deforestation. Benjamin BLACK CEU eTD Collection June, 2020 Budapest i Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management MESPOM This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the Master of Science degree awarded as a result of successful completion of the Erasmus Mundus Masters course in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management (MESPOM) jointly operated by the University of the Aegean (Greece), Central European University (Hungary), Lund University (Sweden) and the University of Manchester (United Kingdom). CEU eTD Collection ii Notes on copyright and the ownership of intellectual property rights: (1) Copyright in text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies (by any process) either in full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European University Library. Details may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the Author. (2) The ownership of any intellectual property rights which may be described in this thesis is vested in the Central European University, subject to any prior agreement to the contrary, and may not be made available for use by third parties without the written permission of the University, which will prescribe the terms and conditions of any such agreement. (3) For bibliographic and reference purposes this thesis should be referred to as: Black, B.S. 2020. Assessing the ecological effectiveness of protected areas in Cambodia: A quasi-experimental counterfactual estimation of avoided deforestation. Master of Science thesis, Central European University, Budapest. Further information on the conditions under which disclosures and exploitation may take place is available from the Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University. CEU eTD Collection iii Author’s declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Benjamin BLACK CEU eTD Collection iv CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT OF THESIS submitted by: Benjamin BLACK for the degree of Master of Science and entitled: Assessing the ecological effectiveness of protected areas in Cambodia: A quasi-experimental counterfactual estimation of avoided deforestation. Month and Year of submission: June, 2020. In the face of global environmental change, protected areas (PAs) have become an increasingly important tool in modern conservation, and as such there is a clear imperative to maximise the benefits they provide. In this regard a growing field of interest is the quantification of PA ecological effectiveness, often expressed in terms of avoided deforestation achieved relative to unprotected areas. However, such assessments are confounded by biases in both the non- random siting of PAs within landscapes as well as differential pressure upon their resources. These biases can be overcome by the use of quasi-experimental counterfactual study designs, that evaluate the impact of PAs against control areas of ‘similar’ biophysical and socio- economic characteristics. To contribute towards this knowledge domain this study presents an assessment of PA effectiveness for the Southeast Asian nation Cambodia, which, in light of its history of natural resource management, represents a pertinent case study. PA effectiveness was analysed using propensity score matching for three different outcome periods between 2010-2018 with the results finding significant positive treatment effects in each, with forested land in PAs being as much as 8% less likely to be deforested than similar unprotected forest. In addition to this a significant positive spillover effect of PAs was observed in 5km buffers zones adjacent to their boundaries, resulting in a maximum of 4% reduction in probability of deforestation. Furthermore, the effectiveness of PAs in Cambodia was found to vary under differential deforestation pressure as well as with regards to the duration of time since PA CEU eTD Collection establishment. Keywords: Protected area effectiveness, avoided deforestation, matching methods, propensity score, counterfactual, quasi-experimental, spillover effects, conservation v Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents for their unfailing support in all of the choices I have made that have led me to this point, and thanks to those who believed in me along the way and imparted some formative life lessons (Jack and Jemma). Thanks to my supervisor Prof. Brandon Anthony for all of his guidance and time not just through my thesis but throughout my time in MESPOM. I would also like to thank Prof. Johanna Eklund for her advice on matching methods and Noah Greifer for the assistance in making his excellent Cobalt package do things it was never intended to do. Finally, thanks to my partner, Janna, for giving me a reason to get out of bed every morning, I couldn’t have done this without you. CEU eTD Collection vi Table of Contents Thesis structure ................................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2 1.1 The evolution of protected areas: Purpose and importance ................................................... 2 1.2 Assessing PA effectiveness .................................................................................................... 6 1.2.1 Why is assessment important? ........................................................................................ 6 1.2.2 What to assess: Coverage, capacity or outcomes ............................................................ 8 1.2.3 How to assess PA outcomes: Incorporating counterfactuals and biases ....................... 13 1.3 Quasi-experimental techniques for assessing PA ecological outcomes ............................... 17 1.3.1 Regression based conditioning...................................................................................... 18 1.3.2 Matching methods ......................................................................................................... 19 1.3.3 Combining matching and regression............................................................................. 21 1.3.4 Cross-cutting considerations and problems .................................................................. 22 1.3.4.1 The requirement for sampling ................................................................................ 22 1.3.4.2 Validity of hypothesized covariates ....................................................................... 23 1.3.4.3 Quality of matching ............................................................................................... 24 1.3.4.4 Spillover of treatment effects ................................................................................. 27 1.3.4.5 Other considerations .............................................................................................. 28 1.4 Reviewing counterfactual assessments of PA ecological effectiveness ............................... 29 1.4.1 Summarizing results ...................................................................................................... 29 1.4.2 Covariates and confounders of PA effectiveness .......................................................... 31 1.4.3 Critiques of forest dynamic based assessment of PA effectiveness .............................. 32 1.5 Chapter conclusions ............................................................................................................. 33 2. Cambodia: A case study of PA effectiveness......................................................................... 34 2.1 The context of environmental conservation ..................................................................... 34 2.1.1 Characterizing drivers of environmental change ...................................................... 34 2.1.2 Policy eras of natural resource management ............................................................ 37 2.1.2.1 The timber concessions of 1990’s ..................................................................... 37 2.1.2.2 The transition to Economic Land Concessions in the 2000s ............................. 38 2.1.2.3 Directive 01: The move towards genuine land tenure reform? ......................... 41 2.1.3 Quantifying the loss of Cambodia’s forests .............................................................. 43 2.2 Cambodia’s protected areas ............................................................................................ 46 CEU eTD Collection 2.2.1 History of PA establishment, expansion and management ....................................... 47 2.2.2 Prior analysis of PA effectiveness ............................................................................ 51 2.2.2.1 Explanatory factors of environmental degradation ...........................................