Abstract Countries across the globe are expanding their networks of protected areas in an effort to address the increasing rates of biodiversity loss. Protected areas, though, have been criticized extensively for their negative impact on the local communities. Case studies have shown that protected areas can exacerbate poverty. However, these case studies represent only a small proportion of the over two-hundred thousand protected areas available worldwide today. Hence, it is possible that most protected areas do not impoverish the local communities. In fact, a few recent studies have suggested that protected areas do not impact negatively the local people. The findings of those studies, however, are based predominately on data from small geographical regions. Consequently, it is unclear whether their results are widely applicable. In this study, I have used a large dataset from 5800 administrative regions in eleven countries and four continents to explore in more detail the link between protected areas and local poverty rates. Particularly, I have used the quasi-experimental matching method to test whether administrative regions with protected areas have higher proportions of people living below the poverty line. I found no evidence to support this pattern. Protected areas do not appear to be associated with higher poverty rates. Considering that, firstly, biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation represent two of the most urgent challenges of our time, and, secondly, that most efforts to conserve biodiversity are channeled through protected areas, it is crucial to know that protected areas do not interfere with our efforts to alleviate poverty.

中文翻译：

---

来自四大洲 11 个国家的证据表明，保护区与较高的贫困率无关

摘要 全球各国正在扩大其保护区网络，以应对日益增加的生物多样性丧失速度。然而，保护区因其对当地社区的负面影响而受到广泛批评。案例研究表明，保护区会加剧贫困。然而，这些案例研究仅代表当今全球超过 20 万个保护区中的一小部分。因此，大多数保护区可​​能不会使当地社区变得贫困。事实上，最近的一些研究表明，保护区不会对当地人产生负面影响。然而，这些研究的结果主要基于来自小地理区域的数据。因此，尚不清楚他们的结果是否广泛适用。在这项研究中，我使用了来自 11 个国家和四大洲的 5800 个行政区域的大型数据集，更详细地探讨了保护区与当地贫困率之间的联系。特别是，我使用了准实验匹配的方法来检验是否有保护区的行政区域生活在贫困线以下的人口比例更高。我没有找到支持这种模式的证据。保护区似乎与较高的贫困率无关。考虑到，首先，生物多样性保护和减贫是我们这个时代最紧迫的两个挑战，其次，大多数保护生物多样性的努力都是通过保护区进行的，因此至关重要的是要知道保护区不会干扰我们努力减贫。