Local leakage effects of establishing protected areas in multi-use forests
6 affiliations
- 1Queensland University of Technology
- 2The University of Queensland
- 3University of Sydney
- 4Griffith University
- 5DCCEEW
- 6The University of Newcastle School of Environmental and Life Sciences
Abstract
Strengthening protection of multi-use lands used for forestry production is a central pillar for achieving global area-based conservation targets. However, there are concerns that this can lead to “leakage” effects or the displacement of resource extraction activities to unprotected lands, which can undermine biodiversity goals. To assess this risk, we applied a causal inference framework to New South Wales, Australia, which has a long-running program of converting government-owned multi-use land into protected areas. We estimated the historical leakage effects arising from displaced harvesting activities and isolated them from other drivers of forest clearing. Our results show that these leakage effects were small when averaged across the years and rarely exceeded the amount of clearing that the new protected area helped avoid. Leakage effects were statistically significant and increased clearing in nearby areas in the early years of the program (2001), when large amounts of forests were added to the national parks estate each year. However, these estimated effects were much smaller in later years (2006-2011) when fewer protected areas were created annually. Overall, our findings suggest that despite the potential for conservation to shift activities and cause local leakage, strengthening protection on multi-use land still delivered net-positive conservation outcomes. Our findings highlight that while strengthening protection on multi-use lands can deliver conservation outcomes, there is a strong need for similar programmes to be accompanied by monitoring and evaluation that includes estimates of local leakage effects.
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BibTeX
@article{cho2026local,
title = {{Local leakage effects of establishing protected areas in multi-use forests}},
author = {Hin Ting Frankie Cho and Jonathan R. Rhodes and Martine Maron and Daniel Lunney and Md Sayed Iftekhar and Allen Mcilwee and Brooke Anne Williams},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/aebbd6},
url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aebbd6},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Local leakage effects of establishing protected areas in multi-use forests
AU - Hin Ting Frankie Cho
AU - Jonathan R. Rhodes
AU - Martine Maron
AU - Daniel Lunney
AU - Md Sayed Iftekhar
AU - Allen Mcilwee
AU - Brooke Anne Williams
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/30
JO - Environmental Research Letters
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/aebbd6
UR - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aebbd6
AB - Strengthening protection of multi-use lands used for forestry production is a central pillar for achieving global area-based conservation targets. However, there are concerns that this can lead to “leakage” effects or the displacement of resource extraction activities to unprotected lands, which can undermine biodiversity goals. To assess this risk, we applied a causal inference framework to New South Wales, Australia, which has a long-running program of converting government-owned multi-use land into protected areas. We estimated the historical leakage effects arising from displaced harvesting activities and isolated them from other drivers of forest clearing. Our results show that these leakage effects were small when averaged across the years and rarely exceeded the amount of clearing that the new protected area helped avoid. Leakage effects were statistically significant and increased clearing in nearby areas in the early years of the program (2001), when large amounts of forests were added to the national parks estate each year. However, these estimated effects were much smaller in later years (2006-2011) when fewer protected areas were created annually. Overall, our findings suggest that despite the potential for conservation to shift activities and cause local leakage, strengthening protection on multi-use land still delivered net-positive conservation outcomes. Our findings highlight that while strengthening protection on multi-use lands can deliver conservation outcomes, there is a strong need for similar programmes to be accompanied by monitoring and evaluation that includes estimates of local leakage effects.
SN - 1748-9326
ER -