Effectiveness of community forests for forest conservation in Nan province, Thailand

ABSTRACT In 2019, government of Thailand recognized community-based forest management and gave rights to communities to manage their forests. We evaluated the effectiveness of long-established community managed forests in conserving tree cover in Nan province, Thailand. We mapped boundaries of all community managed forests patches to understand their spatial distribution and their overlap with national parks and national forests. We analysed Landsat images between 2000–2019 to map forest-cover changes. Using genetic matching, we compared the effectiveness of various management categories in conserving forests, controlling for covariates. We found that, despite high rates of deforestation in the province, community managed forests are well conserved. Moreover, forests patches in national parks and national forests are better conserved when they overlap with community managed forests. Community forests, as a bottom-up land use institution, are effective in forest conservation. They provide an extra layer of forest protection along with national forests and national parks.