With progress to increase the protected area coverage globally, the focus is now shifting to assessing their effectiveness in maintaining species or avoiding land conversions. Evaluating this is scientifically an interesting question, as it requires the consideration of counterfactual scenarios. This project will use a novel method for estimating protected area effectiveness for the tropical biome, using the best available data and the most suited measures of accessibility. This data will then be used for modelling the effects of quality of governance and management effectiveness on estimates of protected area effectiveness (in collaboration with the Conservation Science Group at the University of Cambridge).