Abstract: Human-induced causes of forest change occur at multiple scales. Yet, most governance mechanisms are designed at a single level – whether international, national, regional or local – and do not provide effective solutions for the overarching challenge of forest governance.

Majority of the households living adjacent to the forest depend primarily on agriculture and secondarily on forest resources. For these households, agriculture plays a key role, for subsistence needs and as the source of income, forest on the other hand is the major source of energy, building materials and income as well.

Rigorous, objective evaluation of forest conservation policies in developing countries is needed to ensure that the limited financial, human, and political resources devoted to these policies are put to good use. Yet such evaluations remain uncommon. Recent advances in conservation best practices, the widening availability of high-resolution remotely sensed forest-cover data, and the dissemination of geographic information system capacity have created significant opportunities to reverse this trend.

For Acre, in the Brazilian Amazon, we find that protection types with differences in governance, including different constraints on local economic development, also differ in their locations. Taking this into account, we estimate the deforestation impacts of these protection types that feature different levels of restrictions. To avoid bias, we compare these protected locations with unprotected locations that are similar in their characteristics relevant for deforestation.

Patterns of forest cover and forest degradation determine the size and types of ecosystem services forests provide. Particularly in low-income countries, nontimber forest product (NTFP) extraction by rural people, which provides important resources and income to the rural poor, contributes to the level and pattern of forest degradation.