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SUMMARY:Detecting Policy Signals in National Deforestation Trajectories ac
 ross the Tropics - Jakob Poffley\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20251128T130000Z
DTEND:20251128T140000Z
UID:TALK237532@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:114742
DESCRIPTION:*Abstract*\n\nTropical deforestation remains a major global su
 stainability challenge despite decades of public\, private and NGO-led con
 servation efforts. Rates of forest loss vary widely across countries and t
 hrough time\, suggesting that national policy choices may strongly influen
 ce outcomes. Despite this\, robust causal impact evaluations of public pol
 icy at this scale remain scarce\, partly due to difficulties in constructi
 ng credible counterfactuals and isolating policy effects amid confounding 
 global drivers and numerous\, overlapping policy interventions. Here\, a c
 omparative structural break detection framework is applied to remote sensi
 ng derived national deforestation trajectories to identify potential polic
 y signals once external drivers are accounted for. The approach accommodat
 es diverse policy response dynamics by allowing multiple forms of structur
 al change to be detected\, without prior assumptions about treatment timin
 g or assignment. Preliminary results highlight both the promise and limita
 tions of existing data and causal inference methods for detecting policy-i
 nduced changes in deforestation at the national scale. Through subsequent 
 attribution of structural breaks to individual policies or policy mixes\, 
 this research seeks to clarify the role of public policy in shaping tropic
 al forest dynamics\, while advancing methods for evaluating conservation i
 mpacts at national scales.\n\n*Bio*\n\nJakob Poffley is a PhD student in t
 he Conservation and Development Lab at the University of Cambridge’s Dep
 artment of Geography and Conservation Research Institute. His work is supe
 rvised by Prof. Rachael Garrett and Prof. Srinivasan Keshav\, and funded b
 y the Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence for Environm
 ental Risk (AI4ER CDT).Jakob’s PhD research uses causal impact evaluatio
 n and land system science to examine how governance arrangements\, includi
 ng public policy\, jurisdictional approaches\, and the EU Deforestation Re
 gulation\, affect deforestation and related socio-environmental outcomes a
 cross the tropics. In doing so\, he investigates whether coherent policy m
 ixes can overcome the limits of individual instruments and enable forest c
 onservation at scale. Beyond his PhD\, Jakob has worked on illegal wildlif
 e trade\, biodiversity offsetting\, wildlife monitoring\, climate change\,
  and forest ecology. He holds an MRes in Environmental Data Science and BA
  in Natural Sciences\, both from the University of Cambridge.
LOCATION:Room FW11 at the William Gates Building and on Zoom: https://cl-c
 am-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/4361570789?pwd=Nkl2T3ZLaTZwRm05bzRTOUUxY3Q4QT09&amp\;fr
 om=addon 
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