Many constraints upon REDD policies’ ability to reduce forest loss are common across settings, inherent in the fact that agents making key choices respond also to other factors that influence the overall incentive to clear or to degrade a forest instead of conserving it. The record is mixed,...

Forest protection can imply binding constraints on communities (‘fences & fines’) yet some attempts to protect forest by blocking local land use are fruitless (‘paper tigers’). Participatory protection, i.e. involving a local community in forest ‘co-management’, is a relatively...