Effects of economic globalization and trade on forest transitions: Evidence from 76 developing countries

Abstract

Current forest recovery efforts in developing countries are different from previous efforts in developed countries, especially since the rise of economic globalization in the 1980s. Therefore, forest transition theory should now consider factors relating to industrialization, urbanization, and globalization. While previous studies have mainly focused on the variable trade of primary sector products, this study applies a more holistic research perspective and discusses, more widely, the links between trade, adjustment of trade structure, FDI, and forest transition. The results suggest that the total export value has a significant negative effect on forest area and volume, while the percentage of non-primary products has a significant positive impact on forest volume and density in the 76 developing countries studied. These results indicate that a country or region may improve the forest resource conditions by upgrading the export structure through the development of export-oriented manufacturing and service industries during the process of global industrial restructuring. This demonstrates the need to consider the overall global economic situation of a country when exploring the effects of economic globalization on forest transitions. In addition, this study attempts to address extant concerns regarding the quality of forest transitions by moving beyond the analysis of forest coverage to explore changes in both forest area and forest volume.Keywords: forest transition; reforestation; economic globalization; trade RÉSUMÉ Présentement, les efforts consacrés à la régénération forestière dans les pays en voie de développement diffèrent de ceux que les pays développés y consacraient auparavant en raison surtout de l'avènement de la mondialisation économique au cours des années '80. C' est pourquoi la théorie sur la transition forestière devrait maintenant tenir compte des facteurs liés à l'industrialisation, à l'urbanisation et à la mondialisation. Si les études précédentes ont surtout porté sur le commerce changeant pour les produits du secteur primaire, cette étude adopte une approche plus holistique et traite de façon plus globale des liens entre le commerce, les changements à la structure commerciale, l'IDE et la transition forestière. Les résul-tats laissent voir qu'une hausse de la valeur totale des exportations se traduit par une baisse significative de la surface des forêts et le volume forestier alors que l'augmentation du pourcentage de produits transformés influence positivement le volume et la densité forestière dans les 76 pays en voie de développent faisant l' objet de cette étude. Ces résultats laissent entrevoir qu'un pays ou une région pourrait améliorer l' état de ses ressources forestières si elle modernisait sa structure d' exportation en favorisant la croissance d'industries manufacturières et de services en marge une restructuration industrielle globale. De là l'importance de considérer l' ensemble de la situation économique d'un pays lorsqu' on veut connaître les effets de la mondialisat...

The Impact of Globalization on Forest Growth: Evidence from Multinational Panel Data

“…Our results suggesting that different dimensions of Globalization exert different impacts on forest growth are similar to those elucidated by Wang et al (2021b) [22], who argue that the various characteristics and influences of specific dimensions of Globalization on the environment need to be investigated. Our results are also similar to those of Li et al (2017a) [21], who propose that economic globalization creates greater forest cover. The potential reasons for this are as follows.…”

“…Trade openness (Trade): similar to Li et al (2017a) [ 21 ], we utilize the share of exports and imports to GDP to capture the degree of openness, denoted by Trade.…”

“…First, according to the traditional theory of international trade, globalization usually causes three effects: a scale effect, a composition effect, and a technology effect (Copeland and Taylor, 2013) [19]; these may change economic activities and production methods and eventually affect the utilization of land or forests. However, as far as we are concerned, globalization not only means economic globalization or trade openness but represents a multifaceted phenomenon with essential social and political dimensions, as the environmental problem is a worldwide issue on which nearly all countries agree (Yang et al, 2021) [20]; thus, the deforestation caused by the scale effect of globalization may be somewhat weakened (Li et al, 2017a) [21], meaning that international trade or investment is more likely to present a technological effect for improving production methods in an environmentally friendly manner (Wang et al, 2021b) [22].…”

“…The potential contributions of this work are as follows. First, contrary to previous literature investigating the relationship between globalization and the environment from the perspective of carbon emissions or ecosystems, we focus on the relationship between globalization and forest growth, which counterbalances the dearth of existing literature, as forests contribute to a significant share of the total environment (Li et al, 2017a) [21]. Next, previous studies focused on forests often utilize data for one or a few countries to conduct empirical investigations based on static ordinary least squares estimations, which may create biased conclusions (Harper et al, 2007;Van Khuc et al, 2018; Vergara-Asenjo and Potvin, 2014) [30][31][32].…”

Variações na cobertura florestal e o comércio internacional de commodities agrícolas: uma investigação à luz da Teoria de Transição Florestal

“…A tabela 2 mostra que as exportações dos países apontados como facilitadores da TF (linhas) correspondem a mais de 50% das importações dos países que passam pela TF (colunas, com exceção da Alemanha). Outro ponto que vale destacar é a significativa influência dos EUA como país exportador ao mesmo tempo que tem um ganho significativo de florestas (Apêndice BQ).Os resultados deste estudo mostram que o comércio internacional de commodities agrícolas pode operar como um importante canal de realocação entre o ganho de florestas em países importadores e o desmatamento em países exportadores.6 DISCUSSÃOA mudança de uso das terras é um dos principais fenômenos que contribuem para a mudança ambiental global, entre essas mudanças a conversão de terras antes florestadas para outros usos, como pastos e lavouras, é uma das formas mais significativas(ASHRAF, PANDEY & JONG, 2017; HOSONUMA et al, 2012;LAMBIN & MEYFROIDT, 2011;LINGCHAO et al, 2017; MEYFROIDT et al, 2013; SILVA, BATISTELLA & MORAN, 2016; WICK et al, 2011). presente trabalho avaliou a relação entre a existência do fenômeno da TF em países importadores e de desmatamento em países exportadores de commodities agrícolas, analisando especificamente o comportamento dos mercados de soja e óleo de palma nesse fenômeno, através de recursos de conversão de quantidade produzida em quilogramas para o equivalente em área produtiva (MEYFROIDT, RUDEL & LAMBIN, 2010), o que permitiu estimar o efeito conjunto do comércio destas duas commodities e também oferece uma abordagem que possibilita a expansão do escopo dessa pesquisa, incorporando e avaliando o efeito de outras commodities agrícolas relevantes no comércio internacional.…”