Conservation-development trade-offs in the Brazilian Amazon : the case of protected areas downgrading, downsizing and degazettement.

Summary Protected areas (PAs) are an essential conservation tool in the Brazilian Amazon, which is a key region for combating climate change and faces many economic development challenges. Conflicts between conservation and development objectives for land use, however, have diminished the effectiveness of PAs, either because of their isolation (location bias) or because their boundaries were not sufficiently defended. In addition, the fact that PAs may discourage economic development has led to an acceleration of PA declassifications, reductions, and deletions (PADD) in recent decades. The objective of this thesis is to examine the relationship between PADDD events and trade-offs between environmental conservation and economic development objectives in the Brazilian Amazon, depending on PA characteristics and land heterogeneity. I evaluate this relationship, first in terms of decisions and second, in terms of impacts on deforestation and economic development. In the first chapter, we assess the drivers of PADDD events by examining how conservation-development interactions induce reductions in PA size. From 2006 to 2015, PA size reductions were more common near cities, reflecting the influence of development agencies. As PAs were deforested less, reducing their size could generate high environmental costs. Reductions in PA size were also more common where PAs were already deforested and expensive to manage, reflecting the influence of environmental agencies. In the second chapter, we assess the impact of 2009-2012 PA size reductions on 2010-2015 deforestation, using matching strategies based on economic pressure on land and previous PA efficiency. Our results are consistent with our conceptual framework: reductions in PA size had no impact when they did not face or constrain economic pressures, and increased deforestation when they limited economic pressures to some extent. In the third chapter, we assess the effect of PADDD events from 2001 to 2010 on income distribution and inequality. We use matching strategies and double-difference estimation based on economic pressure on land and the effect of PADDD events on final protection size. Where economic pressures were strong, the new economic opportunities that followed PA size reductions contributed to the growth of the upper-middle income class. Away from economic pressures, inequality decreased when PADD events increased the size of protection, likely due to better PA management or the development of tourism activities. This thesis calls for a more robust analysis of PAs, taking into account their instability and landscape heterogeneity. These results could help allocate scarce resources to consolidate the PA network where it would be most effective, and to select better sites and management types when establishing PAs.