Resource information
This article focuses mainly on the five
primary case study countries. For forest impacts, the
concentration is on forest conversion to other land uses and
deforestation, defined as a (temporary or permanent) removal
of trees to less than 10 percent crown cover, which is
similar to the Food and Agricultural Organization's
(FAO's) definition. Selective logging is thus not
deforestation but may degrade forests and enable conversion.
All of the case study countries are tropical countries that
export oil, a choice made for two reasons. First, the
macroeconomic 'laboratory' of oil exporters offers
a good opportunity to study links between external economic
changes and forests. Oil economies often fluctuate
dramatically due to heavy reliance on a single export
commodity with unstable world market prices. Second, earlier
studies provide support for the hypotheses that on average
oil- and mineral-exporting tropical countries have more
forests left and lose them at a slower rate than
non-mineral-exporting countries. The article briefly reviews
hypotheses and methodologies and outlines the deforestation
data problems and how they were dealt with. It presents
empirical results for the five primary case study countries
and takes a closer look at three of the key causal linkages
in the model. It then examines the role of different policy
instruments and finally discusses policy insights that
extend beyond the oil exporting countries.
