Meeting sustainable development goals requires policies that account for interrelatedness in social and environmental issues such as land tenure and deforestation. This work takes advantage of a nationwide titling campaign in Panama to explore the effect of private titling on forest cover across a heterogeneous landscape covering all stages of forest transition and diverse tenure arrangements. Situated in a broader matched analysis of the influence of zoning and tenure on forest cover, private management is estimated to have contributed to the deforestation of 1750–3650 km of mature forest nationwide from 1990 to 2020 with an average marginal effect of 15.3%. Conversely, Protected Areas and Indigenous Comarcas are estimated to have protected 1700–3900 km and 500–1250 km of mature forest, respectively. Private titling is associated with increased deforestation both during titling and years after, supporting observations that the titling process itself encourages speculative deforestation by title seekers and that private landholders value natural forests less than other land uses such as cattle. By disaggregating the data by region to highlight different stages of forest transition as well as by processes of deforestation and forest growth, this analysis shows that while private titling accelerates deforestation, it also encourages investment in reforestation. This presents a paradox for private titles and forests where agencies may perversely encourage speculative deforestation by creating stronger markets for forest-ready landscapes than for intact natural forests. In cases such as this one, where deforestation helps to secure a title, this paradox is confounded when having a title is set as a precondition for participation in a forest conservation program.

中文翻译：

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巴拿马土地保有权对森林覆盖的影响和私人所有权的悖论


实现可持续发展目标需要政策考虑到土地保有权和森林砍伐等社会和环境问题的相互关联性。这项工作利用巴拿马全国范围内的所有权运动，探索私人所有权对涵盖森林转型所有阶段和不同权属安排的异质景观中森林覆盖的影响。根据对分区和权属对森林覆盖影响的更广泛匹配分析，私人管理估计导致 1990 年至 2020 年全国 1750-3650 平方公里成熟森林被砍伐，平均边际效应为 15.3%。相反，保护区和土著科马卡斯估计分别保护了 1700-3900 平方公里和 500-1250 平方公里的成熟森林。私人所有权在授予期间和之后几年都与森林砍伐增加有关，这支持了这样的观察：所有权授予过程本身鼓励了所有权寻求者的投机性砍伐，并且私人土地所有者对天然林的重视程度低于牛等其他土地用途。通过按地区分类数据以突出森林转型的不同阶段以及森林砍伐和森林生长的过程，该分析表明，虽然私人所有权加速了森林砍伐，但它也鼓励了对重新造林的投资。这对于私人所有权和森林来说是一个悖论，机构可能会通过为森林景观创造比完整天然森林更强大的市场，反常地鼓励投机性砍伐森林。在这种情况下，砍伐森林有助于获得所有权，但当拥有所有权被设置为参与森林保护计划的先决条件时，这种悖论就变得混乱了。