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Parks, Buffer Zones, and Costly Enforcement
Elizabeth J.Z.
Robinson,
CSAE, University of Oxford
Heidi J.
Albers,
Department of Forest Resources, Oregon State University
WPS/2006-15
ABSTRACT:
The reality of protected area management is that enforcing forest and park
boundaries is costly and so most likely incomplete, due in part to the pressures exerted
on the boundaries by local people who often have traditionally relied on the park
resources. Buffer zones are increasingly being proposed and implemented to protect
both forest resources and livelihoods. Developing a spatially-explicit optimal
enforcement model, this paper demonstrates that there is a trade-off between the
amount spent on enforcement, the size of a formal buffer zone, and the extent to
which a forest can be protected from illegal extraction. Indeed, given the reality of
limited enforcement budgets, a forest manager with a mandate to protect a whole
forest may in fact end up doing a worse job than one who is able to incorporate an
appropriately sized buffer zone into their management plans that, combined with more
effective enforcement of a smaller exclusion zone, provide the appropriate incentives
for villagers to extract only in the periphery of the forest, rather than venture further
into the forest.
SUGGESTED CITATION:
Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson and Heidi J. Albers,
"Parks, Buffer Zones, and Costly Enforcement"
(February 1, 2006).
The Centre for the Study of African Economies Working Paper Series.
Working Paper 259.
http://www.bepress.com/csae/paper259
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