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By: Cauê D Carrilho, Julia Naime, Adriana Molina-Garzón, Carla Morsello, Colas Chervier

Abstract:Ìý

REDD+ is supposed to advance forest conservation and climate change mitigation while improving rural livelihoods or, at least, doing no harm to local people. Accordingly, many REDD+ initiatives provide incentives to enhance farmers’ livelihoods and reduce their deforestation practices. However, evidence of such win-win outcomes is rare. Using counterfactual impact evaluation methods, we investigated the impacts of an incentive-based REDD+ program in the state of Acre (western Brazilian Amazon) on a series of land use and livelihood outcomes. Impacts were evaluated during and after the program, contributing to the scientific knowledge about REDD+ effectiveness and permanence of outcomes. We used panel survey data from 262 households (treatment: 150; comparison: 112) collected over three years (2010, 2013, 2019). We found that the program saved an average of 6.23% to 7.33%(6.25 to 7.35 ha) of forest cover per participant household in the first years of implementation by reducing pasture expansion. Forest loss later resumed, but not at a rate that eliminated previous forest conservation gains. On the livelihood side, impacts were not significant at the beginning of the program. Yet, long-term increases in farm and total income were detected. On aggregate, our findings suggest that incentive-based programs can achieve the hoped-for win-win outcomes for REDD+.