Protected but… effective? Only a third of Chaco protected areas effectively curb woodland loss, but their impact extends beyond their boundaries

Using high-resolution woodland loss time series and a robust statistical design, we show that only one out of three protected areas in the Chaco are effective in curbing woodland loss.

Deforestation leakage, or the displacement of woodland loss into the surroundings of protected areas, was rare.

Instead, most of effective protected areas also blocked woodland loss in their surroundings. These findings highlight a substantial underperformance of Chaco’s protected areas in halting woodland loss, likely due to inadequate funding and weak law enforcement.

However, this work also emphasize the potential of strengthening protected area management to leverage conservation impact, inside and beyond their boundaries in global deforestation hotspots.

See the full paper here: Huais, P. Y., Kuemmerle, T., Norti, J., Tomba, A. N., Cordier, J. M., & Baumann, M. (2025). Only one-third of protected areas in the Chaco effectively curb woodland loss, but their impact extends beyond their boundaries. Biological Conservation, 308, 111196.