The Amazon Fund is the world's largest program to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), funded with over US $1b donated by Norway and Germany between 2008 and 2017 to reward Brazil for prior deforestation reductions. Olhos D'Agua da Amazonia is cited as a leading project success − with over one thousand small-to-medium-sized crop and livestock producers in the municipality of Alta Floresta, Mato Grosso State receiving more from the Amazon Fund than all but two other municipalities. To secure property rights, aid environmental planning, and raise farmers' productivity and output diversity, the project helped farmers register in Brazil's environmental cadaster and receive property certificates. Furthermore, Olhos D'Agua supported milk and honey production and paid farmers to conserve riverine forest sites. We estimate causal effects of Olhos D'Agua, versus a counterfactual estimate of what would have happened without the project, using a synthetic-control method. We build from the pool of blacklisted municipalities weighted averages (synthetic controls) that best match pre-treatment outcomes for Alta Floresta. Project effects are estimated as post-treatment differences between Alta Floresta and the synthetic controls. We find that the project increased new CAR registrations, and INCRA certifications, and may have moderately increased honey and milk production. Alta Floresta's annual forest losses remained historically low but we find no clear causal effect of the project on deforestation rates. Our results support that rigorous impact evaluation can motivate and guide project improvements.

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在地方层面评估 REDD+：亚马逊基金对巴西 Alta Floresta 的影响

亚马逊基金是世界上最大的减少森林砍伐和森林退化所致排放量 (REDD+) 的计划，由挪威和德国在 2008 年至 2017 年间捐赠的超过 1 亿美元资助，以奖励巴西先前减少森林砍伐的行为。Olhos D'Agua da Amazonia 被认为是一项领先的成功项目——马托格罗索州 Alta Floresta 市有超过一千家中小型作物和牲畜生产者从亚马逊基金获得的收益比其他两个都多直辖市。为了确保产权、帮助环境规划以及提高农民的生产力和产量多样性，该项目帮助农民在巴西的环境登记簿中登记并获得财产证明。此外，Olhos D' Agua 支持牛奶和蜂蜜生产，并向农民支付费用以保护沿河林地。我们使用综合控制方法估计了 Olhos D'Agua 的因果影响，以及对没有该项目会发生的情况的反事实估计。我们从列入黑名单的城市加权平均值（综合控制）池中构建，这些平均值与 Alta Floresta 的预处理结果最匹配。项目效果估计为 Alta Floresta 和合成对照之间的处理后差异。我们发现该项目增加了新的 CAR 注册和 INCRA 认证，并且可能适度增加了蜂蜜和牛奶的产量。Alta Floresta 的年度森林损失仍处于历史低位，但我们发现该项目对森林砍伐率没有明显的因果影响。