This study assesses the impact of tropical protected areas on deforestation fired, which are the best available globally consistent proxy for deforestation at a fine spatial scale. The paper covers the entire tropical forest biome to estimate the avoided deforestation afforded by several thousands protected areas. Building on recent advances, the authors use matching methods to compare protected area points with similar unprotected points, controlling for slope, rainfall, road proximity, and other factor effecting both deforestation and protected area placement. Unlike previous studies, this work provides a continuous measure of the effectiveness of protection as a function of varying degrees of deforestation pressure, as well as for different classes of protection (strict, multi-use and indigenous). #Tropical #Reducing #Deforestation #Chomitz #2009Conference #EnvironmentalProgramEvaluation #Andrew #Kenneth #Nelson