Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T04:10:41.164Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Deforestation and land use under insecure property rights*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2009

GREGORY S. AMACHER ,
ERKKI KOSKELA  and
MARKKU OLLIKAINEN
GREGORY S. AMACHER
Affiliation:
Department of Forestry, College of Natural Resources, 304D Cheatham Hall, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA. Email: gamacher@vt.edu
ERKKI KOSKELA
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Helsinki, Finland
MARKKU OLLIKAINEN
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Management, University of Helsinki, Finland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine the implications of migration and insecure property rights to land use and deforestation in tropical frontier forests. Three forms of property rights risks are introduced to basic land-use forms. Illegal logging risk is associated with forest plantations, a land expropriation risk affects land in agriculture and plantation forestry, and illegal logging risks threaten native forest land. Public and private landowners can reduce these risks by employing costly enforcement effort. We show how that migration, expropriation, and illegal logging risks lead to deforestation by promoting agricultural expansion, and illegal logging. Higher public enforcement reduces illegal logging, but higher private enforcement may or may not reduce deforestation depending on migration pressures. Higher timber prices have an ambiguous effect on deforestation, but an increasing value of non-timber benefits decreases or leaves deforestation unchanged depending on the incentive structures of illegal loggers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , June 2009 , pp. 281 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albers, H., Fisher, A., and Hanemann, M. (1996), ‘Valuation and management of tropical forests: implications for uncertainty and irreversibility’, Environmental and Resource Economics 8: 39–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, L., Libecap, G., and Mueller, B. (2000), ‘Land reform policies, the sources of violent conflict, and implications for deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 39: 162–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amacher, G., Koskela, E., and Ollikainen, M. (2007), ‘Royalty reform and illegal reporting of harvest volumes under alternative penalty schemes’, Environmental and Resource Economics 38: 189–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angelson, A. (1999), ‘Agricultural expansion and deforestation: modeling the impact of population, market forces, and property rights’, Journal of Development Economics 58: 185–218.Google Scholar
Angelson, A. and Kaimowitz, D. (1999), ‘Rethinking the causes of deforestation: lessons from economic models’, The World Bank Research Observer 14: 73–98.Google Scholar
Anon, (2007), ‘Illegal loggers to face justice’, Illegal-logging.info, http://www.illegal-logging.info/news.php?newsId=1854Google Scholar
Armsberg, J. (1998), ‘Economic parameters of deforestation’, World Bank Economic Review 12: 133–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbier, E., Bockstael, N., Burgess, J., and Strand, I. (1995), ‘The linkages between timber trade and tropical deforestation’,The World Economy 18: 411–442.Google Scholar
Barbier, E. and Burgess, J. (1997), ‘The economics of tropical forest land use options’, Land Economics 73: 174–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbier, E. and Burgess, J. (2001a), ‘The dynamics of tropical deforestation’, Journal of Economic Surveys 15: 413–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbier, E. and Burgess, J. (2001b), ‘Tropical deforestation, tenure insecurity and unsustainability’, Forest Science 47: 497–509.Google Scholar
Barreto, P., Amaral, P., Vidal, E., and Uhl, C. (1998), ‘Costs and benefits of forest management for timber production in eastern Amazonia’, Forest Ecology and Management 108: 9–26.Google Scholar
Blaser, J. and Douglas, J. (2000), ‘A future for forests? Issues and implications for the emerging forest policy and strategy of the World Bank’, ITTO Tropical Forest Update 10: 9–14.Google Scholar
Bohn, H. and Deacon, R. (2000), ‘Ownership risk, investment, and the use of natural resources’, American Economic Review 90: 526–549.Google Scholar
Boscolo, M. and Vincent, J.R. (2000), ‘Promoting better logging practices in tropical forests: a simulation analysis of alternative regulations’, Land Economics 76: 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomitz, K. and Gray, D. (1996), ‘Roads, land use, and deforestation: a spatial model applied to Belize’, World Bank Economic Review 10: 487–512.Google Scholar
Clarke, H.R., Reed, W.J., and Shestra, R.M. (1993), ‘Optimal enforcement of property rights on developing country forests subject to illegal logging’, Resource and Energy Economics 15: 271–293.Google Scholar
Contreras-Hermosilla, A. (2000), ‘The underlying causes of forest decline’, CIFOR Occasional Paper #30, June, 29 pp.Google Scholar
FAO (2005), State of the World's Forests 2005, Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization.Google Scholar
Hardie, I. and Parks, P. (1997), ‘Land use with heterogeneous land quality: an application of an area base model’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 79: 299–310.Google Scholar
Hotte, L. (2005), ‘Natural-resource exploitation with costly enforcement of property rights’, Oxford Economic Papers 57: 497–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyde, W., Amacher, G., and Magrath, W. (1996), ‘Deforestation and forest land use: theory, evidence, and policy implications’, World Bank Research Observer 11: 223–248.Google Scholar
International Tropical Trade Organization (ITTO) (2005), ‘Status of tropical forest management: summary report, a special edition of the Tropical Forest Update’, ITTO Tropical Forest Update 16: (2006).Google Scholar
Johnson, S. (2002), ‘Documenting the undocumented’, ITTO Tropical Forest Update 12: 6–14.Google Scholar
Kaimowitz, D. (1996), Livestock and Deforestation: Central America in the 1980s and 1990s: A Policy Perspective, CIFOR, 95 pp.Google Scholar
Lichtenberg, E. (1989), ‘Land quality, irrigation development, and cropping patterns in the northern high plains’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 71: 187–194.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R. (1994), ‘Property rights and tropical deforestation’, Oxford Economic Papers 46: 750–756.Google Scholar
Parks, P., Barbier, E., and Burgess, J. (1998), ‘The economics of forest use in temperate and tropical areas’, Environmental and Resource Economics 11: 473–487.Google Scholar
Reed, W. (1984) ‘The effects of the risk of fire on the optimal rotation of a forest’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 11: 180–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shively, G.E. (2002), ‘Agricultural change, rural labor markets, and forest clearing: an illustrative case from the Philippines’, Land Economics 77: 268–284.Google Scholar
Shively, G.E. and Pagiola, S. (2004), ‘Agricultural intensification, local labor markets, and deforestation in the Philippines’, Environment and Development Economics 9: 241–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, W. (2002), ‘The global problem of illegal logging’, ITTO Tropical Forest Update 12: 3–5.Google Scholar
van Kooten, G.C., Sedjo, R.A., and Bulte, E.H. (1999), ‘Tropical deforestation: issues and policies,’ in Folmer, H. and Tietenberg, T. (eds), The International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics 1999/2000, pp. 199–248.Google Scholar
Wibowo, D. and Byron, N. (1999), ‘Deforestation mechanisms: a survey’, International Journal of Social Economics 26: 455–474.Google Scholar
Winkler, N. (1997), ‘Environmentally sound forest harvesting: testing the applicability of the Fao model code in the Amazon of Brazil’, Case Study 8, FAO, Rome.Google Scholar
Zhang, D. (2001), ‘Faustmann in an uncertain policy environment’, Forest Policy and Economics 2: 203–210.Google Scholar