Incentives are effective but insufficient to halt smallholder deforestation in the Colombian Amazon

In this article, we assess the impact of two Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives aimed at deterring deforestation in the department of Guaviare, Colombia. The initiatives are the government-led Incentivo Forestal Amazónico (IFA), which is part of the country’s REDD+ strategy, and the NGO-driven Caminemos–Territorios Sostenibles (CTS) project, which supported sustainable land-use activities over a four-year period. We find that, combined, these initiatives prevented approximately 1,400 hectares of forest loss, though they differed in their annualized impacts (2.9% versus 3.8%). We argue that this difference likely reflects variations in the type of incentives provided, their geographic focus, and their overarching goals. IFA focuses on larger, less threatened forest patches across a broader area, providing cash payments to landowners whilst laying the foundations for a long-term conservation and management approach. CTS, in contrast, targeted smaller patches at higher risk of deforestation along Guaviare’s agricultural frontier, offering targeted technical assistance and payments for a series of conservation and restoration commitments at farm level, including the adoption of silvopastoral practices. Considering these findings, we argue that distinct PES designs can play a complementary role in halting deforestation in the Colombian Amazon, and potentially in similar regions across tropical America. We call for more sustained and scaled-up efforts in sustainable land use and forest conservation for smallholders, while recognizing that such initiatives will remain insufficient unless scaling is accompanied by substantially stronger territorial state presence and governance in areas contested by armed groups, as well as comprehensive land-use policy reform.