“Use tropical forests or lose them”—that is the mantra of a growing set of researchers and practitioners who argue, somewhat counterintuitively, that permits for timber extraction can help conserve tropical forests. They claim that permits strengthen land managers’ incentives to use forests so as to generate a long-term stream profits. That, in turn, requires discouraging … [Read more...] about Can timber extraction permits help conserve tropical forests?
Laura Villalobos Fiatt
Laura is a postdoctoral researcher at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, D.C. She has over ten years of experience as an environmental economist, studying the effectiveness of forest conservation policies, including protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, forest certification, forest concessions, and watershed management. The second topic in her portfolio studies how environmental conditions like air quality, temperature, and precipitation affect human capital, and what policies can mitigate these effects. Her research agenda targets decision-makers. Her vision is to provide evidence on what works to prevent and adapt to degraded environmental conditions and to actively engage in the debate about how to fill the inequality gaps in the context of adaptation to climate change in developing countries.