Effectiveness of China's protected areas in reducing deforestation

Protected areas (PAs) are considered a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation, and the number and extent of PAs are expanding rapidly worldwide. While designating more land as PAs is important, concerns about the degree to which existing PAs are effective in meeting conservation goals are growing. Unfortunately, conservation effectiveness of PAs and its underlying determinants are often unclear across large spatial scales. Using PAs in China as an example, we evaluated the effectiveness of 472 PAs established before 2000 in reducing deforestation between 2000 and 2015. Our results show that the majority (71%) of the PAs were effective in reducing deforestation. Without their establishment, deforestation within the PAs would have increased by about 50% (581 km²), with about 1271 megaton of carbon per year not being sequestered. We also found some attributes of PAs, including surrounding deforestation level, roughness of terrain, and travel time to the nearest city, are significantly related to their effectiveness in reducing deforestation. Our findings highlight the need of systematically evaluating the effectiveness of PAs and incorporating this effectiveness into conservation planning and management to more fully realize the goals of PAs not only in China but also around the world.