Global deforestation revisited: The role of weak institutions

Linking weak governance and forest degradation has received increasing attention in scientific and political spheres. Deforestation remains a global matter as a major agent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for endangering the lives of several plant and animal species, and for triggering political disputes involving land tenure and rural violence. Political factors are acknowledged to have a direct impact on forest resources management. Corruption and weak governance are able to deflect policies to private interests, and encourage illegal logging and unlawful allowances to forest degradation even in protected areas. However, the effects of corruption and weak institutions in forest management are still uncertain. This paper offers empirical-based evidence about the relationship between institutional factors and forest cover conversion. The role of weak institutions is explored by employing a logistic model of recent high-resolution global remote sensing data from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Land Cover (CCI-LC) from 1992 and 2015. We assess the cross-country associations of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and the World Bank Government Effectiveness (GE) index while controlling for physiographic and structural variables. Results are robust and show, as expected, that difficult access areas pose considerable barriers to forest conversion, and regions of high agricultural suitability are more likely to be converted from forests to agricultural fields. Furthermore, higher government effectiveness with stronger political enforcement, policy design, and lower corruption perception are significantly related to a lower probability of deforestation. Further elaborating governance and corruption indicators with emphasis on forest management/conservation can potentially improve the accuracy of local and cross-country quantitative land use studies. Our findings support the continuous understanding of weak institutions in deforestation debates. The paper highlights the need to fight corruption and to build strong institutions into effective policy strategies.