Resource information
This paper presents a framework for
analyzing tropical deforestation and reforestation using the
von Thunen model as its starting point: land is allocated to
the use which yields the highest rent, and the rents of
various land uses are determined by location. Forest cover
change therefore becomes a question of changes in rent of
forest versus non-forest use. While this is a simple and
powerful starting point, more intriguing issues arise when
this is applied to analyze real cases. An initial shift in
the rent of one particular land use generates feedbacks
which affect the rent of all land uses. For example, a new
technology in extensive agriculture should make this land
use more profitable and lead to more forest clearing, but
general equilibrium effects (changes in prices and local
wages) can modify or even reverse this conclusion. Another
issue is how a policy change or a shift in broader market,
technological, and institutional forces will affect various
land use rents. The paper deals with three such areas:
technological progress in agriculture, land tenure regimes,
and community forest management. The second part of the
paper links the von Thunen framework to the forest
transition theory. The forest transition theory describes a
sequence over time where a forested region goes through a
period of deforestation before the forest cover eventually
stabilizes and starts to increase. This sequence can be seen
as a systematic pattern of change in the agricultural and
forest land rents over time. Increasing agricultural rent
leads to high rates of deforestation. The slow-down of
deforestation and eventual reforestation is due to lower
agricultural rents (the economic development path) and
higher forest rent (the forest scarcity path). Various
forces leading to these changes are discussed and supported
by empirical evidence from different tropical regions.
