Mixed results on the conservation effectiveness of long-term community forest enterprises in tropical moist forests: Insights from Honduras.

Numerous studies have explored the effectiveness of community forests (CFs) in addressing deforestation and forest degradation and promoting regrowth. However, systematic evaluations of CFs' effectiveness in preventing deforestation and degradation of undisturbed tropical moist forests (TMF) and fostering regrowth remain limited. Here, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of long-term (40-year contract) community forest enterprises (CFEs) in Honduras's TMF. We compared CFEs with both protected and unprotected areas, distinguishing between degraded and undisturbed forests. Using Google Earth Engine and R, we processed Vancutsem's TMF dataset and employed the Mahalanobis distance matching method to account for confounding factors. Our findings indicate the odds of forest degradation and deforestation of undisturbed TMF are 17.8 % and 10.9 % higher, respectively, in CFEs compared with unprotected areas. The odds of degraded forest being deforested are 11.6 % lower, and the odds of regrowth are 177.3 % higher in CFEs compared with unprotected areas. For CFEs and protected areas, there is no significant difference in the three outcomes except for degraded forest being deforested, where the odds are 14.7 % lower in CFEs. However, because CFEs allow selective logging which can cause temporary degradation and the dataset cannot detect recovery within degraded pixels, degradation values within CFEs should not be interpreted as entirely negative outcomes. Instead, they should be seen as conservative indicators of deforestation risk, especially considering that 31.4 % of degraded pixels in CFEs later transitioned to deforested land. The results indicate that the effectiveness of CFEs in forest conservation is not solely dependent on granting long-term management contracts. It is also crucial to consider the status of the forest (undisturbed or degraded) when planning conservation efforts, as this influences the outcomes of CFEs in achieving forest conservation objectives. These findings provide a more accurate and meaningful assessment of CFEs' effectiveness that can inform better policy decisions and management practices, leading to more effective conservation strategies.