As global efforts to protect ecosystems expand, the socioeconomic
impact of protected areas on neighboring human communities
continues to be a source of intense debate. The debate persists
because previous studies do not directly measure socioeconomic
outcomes and do not use appropriate comparison groups to account
for potential confounders. We illustrate an approach using comprehensive
national datasets and quasi-experimental matching methods.
We estimate impacts of protected area systems on poverty in
Costa Rica and Thailand and find that although communities near
protected areas are indeed substantially poorer than national averages,
an analysis based on comparison with appropriate controls
does not support the hypothesis that these differences can be
attributed to protected areas. In contrast, the results indicate that
the net impact of ecosystem protection was to alleviate poverty.