impact evaluation focuses on disentangling the effects attributable to a particular policy intervention eg protected areas on an outcome variable eg deforestation from broader changes in a region eg widespread development or government policies ahmadia more generally according to one source the resources currently allocated to monitoring and evaluation on average less than of a conservation project s budget do not come close to what is needed to satisfy the increasing demand from policymakers for more and higherquality evidence on the impacts of conservation and development interventions mckinnon et al this involves the main impacts and effects resulting from the activity on the local social economic environmental and other development indicators