Deforestation and Global Market Pressures

Abstract

Recent quantitative analyses of deforestation have concentrated on highlighting relatively straightforward correlations between rates of deforestation and its direct and indirectdomestic causes, ignoring complex linkages. We argue that deforestation is part of a structural transformation determined in part by North-South relations through global markets. Besides domestic factors, the global pressures of demand for wood from the tropics also explain the pattern and rate of deforestation. Thus, deforestation is due to circular causation, which cannot be captured by standard linear econometric techniques. Les analyses quantitatives n!centes de fa deforestation se sont attachees de preference aux correlations elementaires entre Ia deforestation et ses causes nationales directes et indirectes. Les auteurs avancent que Ia deforestation s'inscrit plut6t dans 1me transformation structurelle determinee en partie par le jeu des relations Nord-Sud sur les marches mondiaux. Outre les facteurs nationaux, fa croissance de Ia demande mondiale pour les bois tropicaux explique les tendances et le rythme de deforestation. Ainsi, Ia deforestation est attribuable a un enchainement de boucles de causalite que les techniques econometriques lineaires sont impuissantes a saisir. We are grateful to Margot Wilson-Moore and two anonymous referees of this journal for their constructive comments on an earlier versiOn.

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“…They are also modulated by land use as resources may be limited and typical commodities may be substituted by others. In this respect, the global context is especially important, as local and regional demands can be met in spatially disjoint regions by international trade (Dore et al, 1997;Lofdahl, 1998).…”