Forest Tenure

The growth of agriculture output over the past 200 years has been phenomenal. When Malthus wrote in 1798, he perceived limits on agricultural production as serious and imminent. Since then world population has increased by six-fold and global agricultural production has more than kept pace. Falling real grain prices for most of the 20th Century are cited as evidence.

Dipterocarps are one of the best known and commercially important groups of tropical trees. They preside over some of the most magnificent forest formations in the world. Exploitation of dipterocarp-dominated tropical rain forests has expanded rapidly in the past 20 years.

The current study was conducted in Cameroon from July 1996 to June 1997. In general, it aims to describe the current structure of the Cameroon logging industry, assess its importance within Cameroon's economy, and analyse recent developement which the industry has experienced since the devaluation of the CFA franc in January 1994.

As international concern over tropical deforestation has grown over the last ten years, researchers have sought to understand the causes of deforestation and possible solutions using quantitative economic models. This book reviews the results and methodology of over 150 of these models and synthesizes the main lessons that can be learned from them.

Short-term trends show that livestock production is becoming an increasingly important factor in regional development, possibly because of the combined effect of increasing the forages on offer and planting crops better adapted to the environmental and economic conditions of marginal areas and the decreasing interest of the State in expanding the agricultural frontier.

In the last two decades, there has been increasing interest in the potential of small-scale non-timber forest product collection and other low-impact uses of the forest for achieving forest conservation. Experience suggests however that such uses do not guarantee conservation and economic outcomes.

If one is of the mindset that the world is fundamentally chaotic and irrational, then the discpline of economics probably has little to offer. But if one accepts the notion that there is some method to the apparent madness of individuals, governments and organizations, then economic inquiry does have no some contributions to make.