Ecotourism concessions: win-win in the Peruvian Amazon?

• In Event: Adaptation to Environmental Effects? Win-Win, Win-Lose, or Lose-Lose?

Abstract

Ecotourism is often promoted as a win-win strategy to address the dual challenge of conservation and improving rural livelihoods. Yet, rigorous evidence on whether and how ecotourism delivers on these promises remains scarce. This paper addresses this by examining the environmental and socio-economic impacts of ecotourism in the Peruvian Amazon.

Beginning in the early 2000s, the Peruvian government introduced a land concessions policy to promote ecotourism. These concessions granted land-use rights for up to 40 years to individuals and firms, contingent upon management plans centered on ecotourism as the main economic activity. The policy aimed to provide an institutional framework for local development while conserving ecosystems.

I assess the effectiveness of this policy using a synthetic control estimator and a set of the new difference-in-differences estimators for staggered treatment.  Thus I provide estimates for each of the concessions in the Amazon, and for the average concession as well. I measure impacts on deforestation – using MapBiomas and Geobosques data - , and on development using the georeferenced Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), collected almost annually since 2000. I complement this with qualitative fieldwork, including interviews with concessionaires and local workers to understand the mechanisms.

Results show that, on average, ecotourism does not have any effect on deforestation, but there are considerable differences across sites. Successful concessions appear to be the ones with more diverse tourism activities and active engagement of different stakeholders, which may be leading to higher tourism visitation. Given no negative effects on development, ecotourism concessions appear to be a successful and desired form of development in the region. The results suggest that ecotourism can help balance forest conservation and livelihoods, but only under certain institutional and managerial conditions.

This study contributes novel causal evidence on the real-world outcomes of ecotourism, helping to inform more effective policy design. In the broader context of sustainable forest governance and equitable development, this paper provides timely insights on how tourism-based interventions may function within the wider landscape of natural resource use and local community development.

Author

• Camilo De Los Rios, Duke University
  Presenting Author