Adriana Molina Garzon

Can Interventions Reduce Rural Poverty While Conserving the Environment? A Systematic Review of Evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:38:49 +0000

Can Interventions Reduce Rural Poverty While Conserving the Environment? A Systematic Review of Evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:38

Can Interventions Reduce Rural Poverty While Conserving the Environment? A Systematic Review of Evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials

By: Adriana Molina-Garzón, Lakshmi Iyer, Phani Devarakonda, Valena McEwen, Braden Roosevelt, Nicolas Tsypin, Aemro Worku, Poulomi Ghosh, Ellis A Adams, Krister P Andersson, Daniel C Miller, Notre Dame Halls

Abstract:

Efforts to achieve poverty reduction alongside environmental conservation are hampered by the lack of credible causal evidence. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are an established method for producing such evidence. Yet existing knowledge remains fragmented: most studies focus on poverty or conservation in isolation, with few examining both outcomes. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of RCTs of interventions in rural areas of low-and middleincome countries (LMICs) that measured poverty alleviation and/or environmental conservation outcomes. We identified 112 studies published since 1990, only five of which measured both poverty and environmental outcomes. Studies assessed a wide range of interventions, with monetary and mixed livelihood programs (eg cash transfers or price support) most prevalent in poverty-related studies, and training, monitoring, and compliance programs most common among conservation-related studies. Impacts were heterogeneous across the evidence base. Multi-component interventions combining monetary and non-monetary support more

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Making place-based sustainability initiatives visible in the Brazilian Amazon

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:37:21 +0000

Making place-based sustainability initiatives visible in the Brazilian Amazon Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:37

Making place-based sustainability initiatives visible in the Brazilian Amazon

By: Krister Andersson, Eduardo Brondizio, Fabio de Castro, Celia Futemma, Tais Gonzalez, Marina Londres, Gabriela Lopes, Adriana Molina-Garzon, Carl Salk, Sacha Siani, Maria Tengo, Daiana Tourne

Abstract:

From state-based developmentalism to community-based initiatives to market-based conservation, the Brazilian Amazon has been a laboratory of development interventions for over 50 years. The region is now confronting a devastating COVID-19 pandemic amid renewed environmental pressures and increasing social inequities. While these forces are shaping the present and future of the region, the Amazon has also become an incubator of local innovations and efforts confronting these pressures. Often overlooked, place-based initiatives involving individual and collective-action have growing roles in promoting regional sustainability. We review the history of development interventions influencing the emergence of place-based initiatives and their potential to promoting changes in productive systems, value-aggregation and market-access, and governance arrangements improving living-standards and environmental sustainability. We provide examples of initiatives documented by the AGENTS project, contextualizing them within the literature. We reflect on challenges and opportunities affecting their trajectories at this critical juncture for the future of the region.

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The Role of NGOs in Forest Governance: Unintended Consequences of REDD+

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:36:23 +0000

The Role of NGOs in Forest Governance: Unintended Consequences of REDD+ Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:36

The Role of NGOs in Forest Governance: Unintended Consequences of REDD+

By: Adriana L Molina Garzón

Abstract:

The proliferation of non-governmental organizations in environmental governance is well known. NGOs took a more active role during the early 2000s supported by the substantial flow of climate change financial aid in the design and implementation of mitigation programs to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). These programs were conceived under the premise of international flow of resources to finance market-oriented programs to incentivize conservation. However, global carbon markets failed to materialize in a sustainable way, so many REDD+ programs took a results-based approach where the program design included a bundle of interventions aimed at enabling measures or the provision of incentives to protect forests, not always including payments for environmental services (PES).

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Synergies between interventions: The Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR) and REDD+ in the Brazilian Amazon

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:33:17 +0000

Synergies between interventions: The Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR) and REDD+ in the Brazilian Amazon Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:33

Synergies between interventions: The Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR) and REDD+ in the Brazilian Amazon

By: Adriana Molina-Garzón, Carolina Gueiros, Erin O Sills

Abstract:

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined since 2023, yet the durability of these gains depends in part on whether smallholders, who face persistent institutional and financial barriers, can comply with environmental regulations such as Brazil’s Rural Environmental Registry (Cadastro Ambiental Rural, CAR). This study provides one of the first empirical tests of whether a national regulatory instrument (CAR) and a subnational incentive-based intervention (REDD+) reinforce one another in practice for smallholders. Using panel data from CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (2010, 2014, 2018), we estimate inverse-probability-weighted logistic models to assess the association between REDD+ participation and CAR uptake, and weighted fixed-effects models to examine whether forest cover trajectories differ systematically across REDD+ participants depending on subsequent CAR registration, allowing for heterogeneity by baseline forest cover. Our results indicate that REDD+ participation was associated with higher CAR uptake primarily among smallholders already engaged in REDD+ by 2014, with little evidence of additional post-2014 registration once baseline CAR status is accounted for. Neither REDD+ nor CAR alone produced consistent changes in forest cover. However, joint REDD+ and CAR participation was associated with higher forest cover in 2014 and 2018. These complementarities vary by baseline land-use conditions: large early gains occurred in high-forest landholdings, modest short-lived effects in medium-forest landholdings, and delayed but positive effects in low-forest properties. While results depend on assumptions regarding unobserved baseline CAR registration, the findings suggest that CAR registration operates as a pathway through which REDD+ may influence forest outcomes under specific land-use conditions and time frames. Overall, the study advances understanding of how regulatory and incentive-based policy mixes operate for smallholders in Amazonian conservation.

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Temperature Shocks and Health System Resilience: Evidence from the Supply Chain in Ghana

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:31:41 +0000

Temperature Shocks and Health System Resilience: Evidence from the Supply Chain in Ghana Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:31

Temperature Shocks and Health System Resilience: Evidence from the Supply Chain in Ghana

By: Aleksandr Michuda, Adriana Molina-Garzón, Karen Ortiz-Becerra

Abstract:

This paper examines how extreme temperatures affect the operational capacity of a national health system by tracking facility-level demand for medical inputs in Ghana. We leverage a high-frequency panel of on-demand aerial deliveries to more than 2,700 facilities and link each facility’s orders—volumes, emergency status, and product composition—to local monthly temperature exposure. Using a two-way fixed-effects approach, we show that heat spikes raise overall resupply demand and, importantly, increase the share of deliveries triggered by stockouts across all facility types. Mid-to high-tier facilities exhibit a contemporaneous rise in deliveries for critical patients. Productlevel patterns indicate that heat primarily drives up demand for storable consumables such as fluids, while categories not directly heat-sensitive (eg, family-planning supplies) remain flat. The total order counts tend to recede in the months after a heat shock, yet the stockout share persists—especially at higher-level facilities—consistent with inventories being drawn down by sustained caseloads and replenished via just-intime resupply. We further document that consecutive months of extreme heat amplify stockout rates. Taken together, these results provide system-wide, facility-level evidence that temperature shocks transmit quickly through the supply chain, and shed light on the operational vulnerabilities of health systems under climate stress and the need to strengthen supply chain resilience as an adaptation strategy.

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Environmental motivations in an ongoing PES program in the Colombian Amazon

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:30:16 +0000

Environmental motivations in an ongoing PES program in the Colombian Amazon Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:30

Environmental motivations in an ongoing PES program in the Colombian Amazon

By: Adriana Molina-Garzón, Lina M Moros, Santiago Izquierdo-Tort, Ivan Savin, Esteve Corbera

Abstract:

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are often regarded as incentive-based environmental policy programs that can potentially “crowd out” participants’ intrinsic conservation motivations. However, conservation motivations may also coexist and reinforce each other under certain program designs, implementation practices and household contexts. In contrast to studies focusing on post-program persistence, this article examines motivational dynamics while incentives are active. We study whether reported intrinsic and extrinsic motivations move in opposite directions or coexist among households enrolled in Colombia’s Amazon Forest Incentive Program (IFA) in a high-deforestation risk region during the study period. Using two-wave panel survey data (2022–2023) from 144 program participants and 43 eligible non-participants of an ongoing program, we relate within-household changes in motivations to three exposure measures: participation status, the number of payments received, and the share of PES payments relative to household income. Participation was associated with stronger guilt-related motivation, while a higher payment-to-income share (payment salience) was associated with stronger intrinsic motivations linked to self-image, identity, and moral responsibility. The number of payments received showed weak and inconsistent associations with intrinsic motivations. Higher payment salience was also associated with greater recognition of payments as a conservation incentive without evidence of displacement of intrinsic motivations over the study period, supporting a coexistence interpretation rather than a simple trade-off. Overall, the results highlight associations between payment salience, structural context, and motivational dynamics.

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REDD+ Impacts on Forest Conservation and Local Livelihoods: A Longitudinal Assessment in the Brazilian Amazon

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:28:30 +0000

REDD+ Impacts on Forest Conservation and Local Livelihoods: A Longitudinal Assessment in the Brazilian Amazon Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:28

REDD+ Impacts on Forest Conservation and Local Livelihoods: A Longitudinal Assessment in the Brazilian Amazon

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

Abstract:

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+.

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Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction: path-dependent generosity within sequential water appropriation

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:26:29 +0000

Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction: path-dependent generosity within sequential water appropriation Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:26

Framed field experiment on resource scarcity & extraction: path-dependent generosity within sequential water appropriation

By: Alexander Pfaff, Maria Alejandra Vélez, Pablo Andres Ramos, Adriana Molina

Abstract:

How one treats others is important within collective action. We ask if resource scarcity in the past, due to its effects upon past behaviors, influences current other-regarding behaviors. Contrasting theories and empirical findings on scarcity motivate our framed field experiment. Participants are rural Colombian farmers who have experienced scarcity of water within irrigation. We randomly assign participants to groups and places on group canals. Places order extraction decisions. Our treatments are sequences of scarcities: ‘from lower to higher resources' involves four rounds each of 20, 60, then 100 units of water; ‘from higher to lower resources' reverses the ordering. We find that upstream farmers extract more, but a lower share, when facing higher resources. Further they take a larger share of higher resources when they faced lower resources in earlier rounds (relative to when facing higher resources initially). That is inconsistent with leading models of responses to scarcity which focus upon one's own gain. It is consistent with lowering one's weight on others to, for instance, rationalize having left them little. Our results suggest that facing higher scarcity can erode the bases for collective actions. For establishing new institutions, timing relative to scarcity could affect the probability of success.

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Voluntary leadership and the emergence of institutions for self-governance

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:24:48 +0000

Voluntary leadership and the emergence of institutions for self-governance Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:24

Voluntary leadership and the emergence of institutions for self-governance

By: Krister P Andersson, Kimberlee Chang, Adriana Molina-Garzón

Abstract:

Strong local institutions are important for the successful governance of common-pool resources (CPRs), but why do such institutions emerge in the first place and why do they sometimes not emerge at all? We argue that voluntary local leaders play an important role in the initiation of self-governance institutions because such leaders can directly affect local users’ perceived costs and benefits associated with self-rule. Drawing on recent work on leadership in organizational behavior, we propose that voluntary leaders can facilitate a cooperative process of local rule creation by exhibiting unselfish behavior and leading by example. We posit that such forms of leadership are particularly important when resource users are weakly motivated to act collectively, such as when confronted with “creeping” environmental problems. We test these ideas by using observations from a laboratory-in-the-field experiment with 128 users of forest commons in Bolivia and Uganda. We find that participants’ agreement to create new rules was significantly stronger in group rounds where voluntary, unselfish leaders were present. We show that unselfish leadership actions make the biggest difference for rule creation under high levels of uncertainty, such as when the resource is in subtle decline and intragroup communication sparse.

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Enforcement and inequality in collective PES to reduce tropical deforestation: Effectiveness, efficiency and equity implications

Avery Lord — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:22:17 +0000

Enforcement and inequality in collective PES to reduce tropical deforestation: Effectiveness, efficiency and equity implications Avery Lord Thu, 06/18/2026 - 11:22

Enforcement and inequality in collective PES to reduce tropical deforestation: Effectiveness, efficiency and equity implications

By: Julia Naime, Arild Angelsen, Adriana Molina-Garzón, Cauê D Carrilho, Vivi Selviana, Gabriela Demarchi, Amy E Duchelle, Christopher Martius

Abstract:

Collective Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), where forest users receive compensation conditional on group rather than individual performance, are an increasingly used policy instrument to reduce tropical deforestation. However, implementing effective, (cost) efficient and equitable (3E) collective PES is challenging because individuals have an incentive to free ride on others’ conservation actions. Few comparative studies exist on how different enforcement strategies can improve collective PES performance. We conducted a framed field experiment in Brazil, Indonesia and Peru to evaluate how three different strategies to contain the local free-rider problem perform in terms of the 3Es: (i) Public monitoring of individual deforestation, (ii) internal, peer-to-peer sanctions (Community enforcement) and (iii) external sanctions (Government enforcement). We also examined how inequality in wealth, framed as differences in deforestation capacity, affects policy performance. We find that introducing individual level sanctions can improve the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of collective PES, but there is no silver bullet that consistently improves all 3Es across country sites. Public monitoring reduced deforestation and improved the equity of the program in sites with stronger history of collective action. External sanctions provided the strongest and most robust improvement in the 3Es. While internal, peer enforcement can significantly reduce free riding, it does not improve the program’s efficiency, and thus participants’ earnings. The sanctioning mechanisms failed to systematically improve the equitable distribution of benefits due to the ineffectiveness of punishments to target the largest free-riders. Inequality in wealth increased group deforestation and reduced the efficiency of Community enforcement in Indonesia but had no effect in the other two country sites. Factors explaining differences across country sites include the history of collective action and land tenure systems.

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