Forest Conservation Performance Rating (fCPR) Report 2: Bad News for the Pan-Tropics and Everybody Else

45 Pages Posted: 16 Mar 2013

See all articles by David Wheeler

David Wheeler

Center for Global Development

Dan Hammer

Center for Global Development

Robin Kraft

Center for Global Development

Date Written: March 7, 2013

Abstract

This paper updates Working Paper 294, “FCPR — Forest Conservation Performance Rating for the Pan-Tropics.

Forest Conservation Performance Rating (fCPR) is a system of color-coded ratings for tropical forest conservation performance that can be implemented for local areas, countries, regions, and the entire pan-tropics. The ratings reward tropical forest conservation in three dimensions: (1) Progress toward elimination of tropical forest clearing by 2050; (2) progress toward achieving more ambitious REDD goals; and (3) achieving an immediate reduction in forest clearing. We assign green ratings to areas that meet condition (2); yellow to areas that meet (1) only; dark red to areas that fail both conditions, with forest clearing still increasing; and light red to areas that fail both conditions, but with declining forest clearing. This paper introduces quarterly conservation performance ratings for 56 tropical forest countries, as well as 781 of their states and provinces that contain tropical forests. We also combine the fCPR country ratings to produce ratings for major regions and the entire pan-tropics. Overall, we find that conservation performance has deteriorated significantly since 2005 at the global and regional levels. Some gains were made at the height of the global economic crisis, but they have proven to be temporary. Since 2010, forest clearing has exhibited rapid growth in most of tropical Asia, Latin America and Africa

Keywords: forests, conservation, satellite imagery

JEL Classification: Q20, Q23, Q27

Suggested Citation

Wheeler, David and Hammer, Dan and Kraft, Robin, Forest Conservation Performance Rating (fCPR) Report 2: Bad News for the Pan-Tropics and Everybody Else (March 7, 2013). Center for Global Development Working Paper No. 317, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2233511 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2233511

David Wheeler (Contact Author)

Center for Global Development ( email )

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Dan Hammer

Center for Global Development ( email )

2055 L St. NW
5th floor
Washington, DC 20036
United States

Robin Kraft

Center for Global Development ( email )

2055 L St. NW
5th floor
Washington, DC 20036
United States

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