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The environmental effects of trade: timber export & deforestation in the case of ASEAN By Alounxay Naphayvong A thesis submitted for the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERS OF ARTS IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT at the INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN 2008

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Page 1: Deforest as Ion Asia

The environmental effects of trade: timber export & deforestation

in the case of ASEAN

By

Alounxay Naphayvong

A thesis submitted for the partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the degree of

MASTERS OF ARTS ININTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

at the

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN

2008

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The thesis of Alounxay Naphayvong is approved by the thesis examining committee.

_______________________________

Nawalage S. Cooray (Examiner)

______________________________

Yuqing Xing (Supervisor)

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN

2008

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of my supervisor, Prof. Yuqing

Xing. He has made an enormous contribution with his useful suggestions and

invaluable support throughout this study. I am also highly thankful to Prof Nawalage

S. Cooray for valuable suggestions for this thesis.

I would like express my sincere appreciation to JICA and JICE from granting

the opportunity to study in Japan under the JDS scholarship programme.

This acknowledgment would not be complete without sincere thanks to all the

students that I have met in IDP who have discussed and shared ideas with me during

my study in IUJ. Moreover, my sincere thanks go to all the Lao students who shared

their happiness, sadness and experiences with me. In addition, I would like to thank

an anonymous reviewer for all the constructive comments provided on this study.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents and brother for their

love and encouragement throughout my life.

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... iiTable of Contents.................................................................................................... iiiList of tables ........................................................................................................... ivABSTRACT .............................................................................................................vCHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION....................................................................... 1

1.1.1.2.1.3.1.4.1.5.

Scope of the Study.................................................................................... 1Research Issues ........................................................................................ 3Purpose of this study ................................................................................ 3Methodology ............................................................................................ 4Organization............................................................................................. 5

CHAPTER TWO: OVERVIEW OF ASEAN’S DEFORESTATION AND TIMBERTRADE ................................................................................................................... 6

2.1.2.2.

Overview of deforestation in Southeast Asia............................................. 6Forest productions and trade in Southeast Asia ......................................... 9

2.2.1.2.2.2.

ASEAN’s roundwood production ..................................................... 9ASEAN’s roundwood export and import......................................... 10

2.3. Deforestation policies trend in ASEAN .................................................. 12CHAPTER THREE: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 16CHAPTER FOUR: DATA AND MODEL SPECIFICATION ............................... 23

4.1. Specification of variables........................................................................ 234.1.1.4.1.2.

Annual change in forest area........................................................... 23Explanatory variables...................................................................... 24

4.2. Data sources ........................................................................................... 27HAPTER FIVE: THE ECONOMETRIC MODEL AND RESULTS ...................... 29

5.1.15.1.2.

The econometric model ...................................................................... 29Results and discussion ........................................................................ 31

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION........................................................................... 36REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 38APPENDICES ....................................................................................................... 42

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List of tables

Table 1: ASEAN’s deforestation rate 1990-2000...................................................... 8

Table 2: ASEAN’s roundwood exports and imports 1990-2000 ............................. 12

Table 3: Summarize literature survey on deforestation in national-country regression

model..................................................................................................................... 21

Table 4: Details of variables.................................................................................. 28

Table 5: Results .................................................................................................... 31

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ABSTRACT

The environmental effects of trade: timber export & deforestation

in the case of ASEAN

by

Alounxay Naphayvong

Masters of Arts International Development

International University of Japan, 2008

Professor Yuqing Xing, Supervisor

This study examined the impact of roundwood export on deforestation during

the 1990-2005 period across ASEAN countries. Factors related to agricultural

production, population, economy, agricultural land, and protected area in each

country were hypothesed to influence deforestation. The study briefly reviews some

evidence on the links between timber trade and deforestation. Results of a panel

data’s regression show that population growth and agricultural production are

associated with forest degradation. Results also suggest that economic growth that

leads to poverty reduction can significantly decrease deforestation rate. Finally,

results show that the effect of roundwood export and protected area changes have an

insignificant influence on the depletion of forests.

JEL classification: L73, Q23, Q56

Key words: Deforestation, roundwood, ASEAN

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Scope of the Study

Environmental issues are commonly debated in international arenas, which have

drawn attention on the impact of economic development on environmental

degradation. The link between trade and environmental issues was spotlighted in

negotiations within the WTO at the Doha Ministerial Summit in 2001. This hasn't be

a surprise, as the relationship between trade and environment has been considered as

a major issue in discussions on the general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT)

since the establishment of the post war global trading system in 1947. The wide

question of timber trade necessarily leads to a preoccupation for increased

deforestation which is an important topic for the trade and environment debate.

Theoretically, international trade encourages income to rise, which is associated with

change in the production and consumption structures. According to an ASEAN

report published in 2006, globalization of the economy in developing countries is

strongly associated with economic growth. International trade represents 14.7 percent

of the growth of the nominal value of total trade, or 6 percent of the growth rate of

GDP among the ASEAN countries.

International trade agreements have a great influence on the ratio of export

increase, through their impact on import tariff restrictions in developing countries.

More dynamic trade expected from tariff barriers reductions should allow an

economy to produce more output, hence an increase in demand on natural resources

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which could lead to more environmental damage. In most developing countries,

agriculture, energy, mining and forestry create at least half of gross national product.

Expansion of timber trade could affect deforestation resulting in environmental

degradation because of its effect on biodiversity loss, climate change, flooding, soil

degradation and wildlife threat. In addition, forests play an important role in

maintaining water resources, wild life habitat and soil conservation. Moreover,

forests play an important role in carbon dioxide regulation by absorbing carbon

dioxide at the global level. A few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests constituted

about 6 millions square miles or 12 percent of the earth’s land. Today, tropical

rainforests cover less then 5 percent or 2.41 millions square miles of the earth’s land

(FAO, 2007). In the ASEAN context, deforestation emerged as a major phenomenon

with a rate of around 1.3 to 1.9 millions hectares per year. Indonesia deforestation

rate for example is about 0.6 million hectares a year in which represents about 0.5

percent of Indonesia’s forest area (FAO, 1995).

The relationship between trade and environment has been investigated by many

researchers addressing the question of whether there is significant relationship

between timber trade and tropical deforestation. According to Capistrano (1990),

timber trade is associated with deforestation. She examined the effect of timber trade

on deforestation in developing countries by analyzing data from forty five

developing countries. Capistrano concluded that export price of timber had a major

effect of deforestation. Similarly, the relationship between timer production and

forest clearance in topical area was investigated by Barbier et al. (1994). Their study

shows that timber production increases deforestation.

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1.2. Research Issues

Barbier (1994) states that a few studies have examined the relationship between

trade and environment at a global level in the area of deforestation in developing

countries. Moreover, indicators use in these studies does not include potentially

important factors such as on timber export, agriculture land, population growth,

government policy. Therefore, further investigations are needed in order to provide

more satisfactory evidence about the relationship between trade of timber and

deforestation at a regional level as the ASEAN region. Quantitative can inform us

about the influence of factors on deforestation. However, most of quantitative

studies have some limitations due to data quality concerns. Therefore, large number

of countries and long length of time is employed for the global deforestation models.

Moreover, the limited degree of freedom, outliers, missing variables and

multicollinearity are main problems arising in the multi-country model.

1.3. Purpose of this study

The aim of this paper is to estimate the link between trade and environment, and

highlight the rate of cause and effect of deforestation in ASEAN region. The paper

investigates specific issues of timber trade in logging and deforestation in tropical

countries. In addition, the paper examines the following question: Does international

timber trade represent a risk for the degradation of the environment? This study will

provide information on the scale of deforestation process affected by timber export.

Furthermore, this investigation could assist policy makers in planning and managing

suitable policies in the ASEAN region and in other developing countries.

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In addition, unlike previous studies, this work use data of the ten ASEAN

countries spread over fifteen five years, from 1990 to 2005, which is about the same

length of time used in the previous studies. However, this study employ every one

year annual change in change of forest area, rather ten year annual change in

deforestation rate is used by former studies. The study employs latest data available

to provide recent evidence about deforestation and policy recommendation regarding

to government restriction in Southeast Asia.

1.4. Methodology

This paper examines the link between international trade and environment in

relation to timber trade and deforestation by applying multi-country regression

model. The cross-sectional data from the nine ASEAN countries for the period from

1990 to 2005 were used. The regression model considered the rate of change in forest

area, index of agricultural production, population growth, GDP per capita growth,

roudwood export, agricultural land and protected area. Most of the data applied in

this study come from the FAO year book on forest products. Pool regression, fixed

effects and random effect are applied to estimate panel data for past fifteen years

across nine ASEAN countries. Due to lack of data for the roundwood export

variable, the multi-country regression’s simples are restricted to 9 country excluding

Singapore. Moreover, this study employs Hausman test technique to check efficient

of fixed and random effects, which method is preferred to use.

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1.5. Organization

This paper is organized as follows: section two provided overview of

ASEAN’s deforestation and timber trade. The literature on country and multi-country

models related to deforestation is reviewed in section 3. Section 4 presents the data

specification and the source of data. The econometric model and results of study are

discussed in section 5, which followed by conclusions in section 6.

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CHAPTER TWO

OVERVIEW OF ASEAN’S DEFORESTATION AND TIMBER TRADE

In this chapter, we will review a wide trend of deforestation and timber trade

from 1990 to 2005 in ten ASEAN countries. Then, key factors and problems about

deforestation will be discussed, as well as the linkage between timber trade and

deforestation, and policy factors implemented in ASEAN countries.

2.1. Overview of deforestation in Southeast Asia

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is known as one of the

biggest regions in the world. ASEAN is composed of 10 members, namely Brunei

Darussalam; Cambodia; Indonesia; Laos; Malaysia; Myanmar; Singapore; the

Philippines; Vietnam and Thailand. It had in 2005 a global population of about 555

millions individuals or 8.57 percent of world population, and a total country’s area of

448 millions hectares or 3.33 percent of world country’s surface (FAO, 2005).

The ASEAN region began to experience strong economic expansion in the

1990s with Indonesia; Malaysia; Singapore; Thailand and Vietnam taking the lead.

Growth acceleration increased and a diversified production developed to better meet

the consumption need of its population. Output gains on the average boosted the

welfare of millions of people. The rapid economic growth, however, was

accompanied by a degradation in environmental quality, i.e. a retreating bio-diversity

and an increasing forest, land and marine coastal degradation (United Nation

ESCAP, 2007).

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The deforestation in the ASEAN region is a serious concern. Growing

commercial harvesting results in a decline in forest area. High population growths

have also led to widespread tropical deforestation from fuel wood harvesting, timber

harvesting and shifting cultivation for domestic consumption. Others causes of forest

destruction are mining, irrigation and hydroelectric projects (FAO, 1997).

In the 1990s, Indonesia alone had a deforestation rate of 1.9 millions hectare

per year leading to 1.7 per cent per year of forest loss. About between 100,000 to

300,000 hectares per year were also lost in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand,

corresponding to 1.1, 2.8 and 0.7 per cent respectively of annual loss of forest area

during the same decade. About 466,000 hectares per year of forest cover were

dropped in Myanmar alone. Lao PDR and Malaysia each lost a little less than

100,000 hectares per year, corresponding nevertheless to 0.5 and 0.4 per cent

respectively of forest loss. FAO data shows that Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam lost

100.000 hectares per year in the 1981-1990period. Brunei and Singapore’s annual

lost of forest area were close to zero. The only country associated with positive forest

area change is Vietnam with 236,000 hectares per year increase (table 1).

Over the period 2000-2005, ASEAN’s deforestation rate accelerated to 1.27

per cent annually, resulting in a total decrease of over 2.8 millions hectares per year

of forest cover in a five years period. In fact, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines

Malaysia and Myanmar have faced the largest serious deforestation in the ASEAN

region. Only Singapore and Vietnam had a positive annual forest area change (table

1), while the remaining Southeast Asia countries had a deforestation rate of 0.4 to 0.7

per cent, less than 100.000 hectares per year (table 1).

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Country/area

ForestArea Annual change rate

1990 2000 2005 1990-2000 2000-2005

1000 ha 1000 ha 1000 ha 1000 ha/yr

% 1000ha/yr

%

BruneiDarussalam 313 288 278 -2 -0.8 -2 -0.7

Cambodia 12,946 11,541 10,447 -140 -1.1 -219 -2.0Indonesia 116,567 97,852 88,495 -1,872 -1.7 -1,871 -2.0

Lao PDR 17,314 16,532 16,142 -78 -0.5 -78 -0.5Malaysia 22,376 21,591 20,890 -78 -0.4 -140 -0.7Myanmar 39,219 34,554 32,222 -466 -1.3 -466 -1.4

Philippines 10,574 7,949 7,162 -262 -2.8 -157 -2.1Singapore 2 2 2 0 0 0 0Thailand 15,965 14,814 14,520 -115 -0.7 -59 -0.4Viet Nam 9,363 11,725 12,931 236 2.3 241 2.0

Total South-east Asia 244639 216848 203089 -2779.10 -1.14 -2751.80 -1.27

8

Table 1: ASEAN’s deforestation rate 1990-2000

Source: FAO, FRA (2005)

Recently, an increase in forest’s plantation has lead to a slowdown loss of

forest cover. Brunei Darussalam, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam are the countries

that present the fastest forest’s plantation growth in the ASEAN region. However,

replacing timber production aims generally at developing plantation surface rather

than forest area which leads to an even decrease in bio-diversity. ASEAN’s forest

plantation reached over 9.0 per cent of the total forest cover of the region in 2005

(United Nation ESCAP, 2007).

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2.2. Forest productions and trade in Southeast Asia

With its rich biodiversity, forest in Southeast Asia has drawn a lot of attention

from the international community over the past couple of years. It is considered as a

main tropical timber source. Unsurprisingly, timber production and trade have been

carried out actively.

2.2.1. ASEAN’s roundwood production

Roundwood production in Southeast Asia continuously decreased from 325.2

million cubic meters (9.8 per cent of world’s Roundwood production) in 1990 to

297.5 million cubic meters (8.76 per cent of world’s Roundwood production) in

2000. After 2000, it gradually decreased to 265.5 million cubic meters, 7.74 per cent

of the world’s total production. Fuelwood and wood for charcoal account for large

percentage of roundwood consumption, about 73 per cent. Therefore, industrial

roundwood account about 26.9 per cent of total roundwood production in Southeast

Asia region. Around 4.79 per cent of the world’s industrial roundwood comes from

the ASEAN region. The percentage tended to gradually drop in the past couple of

years, with numbers going down from 97.2 million cubic meters in 1990 to 76.1

million cubic meters in 1994 (FAO, 2005).

During the 1990-2005period, ASEAN’s roundwood production gradually

declined year by year. The production comes mainly from Indonesia, which is a

production leader in the Southeast Asia Region, accounting for about 44 per cent of

ASEAN and 3.8 per cent of the world roundwood production. Indonesia is followed

by Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. In Indonesia, there was a

constant decrease in roundwood production from 164.4 million cubic meters in 1990

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to 104.4 million cubic meters in 2005. In Malaysia, there was also decrease in

roundwood production from 45.2 million cubic meters in 1990 to 27.5 million cubic

meters in 2005. However, in Lao PDR there was an increase in production from 6.1

to 6.4 million cubic meters; there was also an increase in Myanmar from 21.2 to 42.5

million cubic meters in 2005. There was an increase in the Philippines up to 44

million cubic meters in 2000, followed by a decrease to 16 million cubic meters in

2005 (FAO 2005).

A large proportion of the population in many developing Asian countries still

rely on fuelwood and charcoal as the common sources of energy in rural and urban

areas. The largest amount of total roundwood production is dedicated to fuelwood.

According to FAO (2005), in 2000, more than 230 million cubic meters (77.6 %) of

the total roundwood production in Southeast Asia was for fuelwood; whereas 66

million cubic meters (22.3%) was for industrial purpose. This amount of ASEAN’s

fuelwood accounts for 12.8% of total roundwood in the world. In Indonesia, there

was a fuelwood production of 88.9 million cubic meters, 72.6% of total roundwood

production. Also, the fuelwood production in the Philippines was 40.9 million cubic

meters, or 93% of its total roundwood production. 26.6 million cubic meters of

fuelwood, or equivalent to 86.4% of its total roundwood production was produced in

Vietnam.

2.2.2. ASEAN’s roundwood export and import

Starting from the 1990s, there was an increasing trend to process the timbers

or turn them into high value products rather than export raw timber. This trend is

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increasing as many countries in the region such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and

Malaysia have banned exports of unprocessed logs. In addition, many other countries

in the region are also considering or in the process of banning export of raw logs. In

the meantime, there was an increase in production and trade of processed products

constantly. This increase can be seen in the Indonesian and Malaysian cases, which

lead the world in production and export the wood products. Indonesia, the world

leader in plywood export, had a wood production of 10 million cubic meters in 1994

and exported 8 million cubic meters of tropical plywood. Also, Malaysia, the world

leader in sawnwood export, exported 4.6 million cubic meters of tropical sawnwood

in 1994 (FAO, 1997).

Table 2 shows a significant decrease in roundwood positive volume trade

balance from Southeast Asia. Roundwood imports plunged after 1980, while

roundwood exports dramatically declined from 32.9 million cubic meters in 1980 to

only 20.2 million cubic meters in 1990. The decline directly flows from the ban in

log exports in Indonesia after 1980. As a result, log exports from Indonesia decreased

from 16.3 million cubic meters in 1980 to around 1.6 million cubic meters during the

1991 to 1992period. In the meanwhile, there was an increase in roundwood exports

from Malaysia from 15.2 million cubic meters in 1980 to 19.8 million cubic meters

in 1985. After 1985, exports remained constant at around 17.8 to 19.5 million cubic

meters until 1992. Thereafter, exports decreased to 6.8 million cubic meters in 2000.

In the Philippines, there has been a slight net roundwood imports, whereas there was

a fluctuated trend in roundwood exports-imports in Singapore. For example, there

was a net roundwood import of 1.1 million cubic meters in 1980; but Singapore

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Roundwood exports quantity (Cubicmeters)

Roundwood imports quantity(Cubic meters)

Country 1980 1990 2000 1980 1990 2000Brunei

Darussalam 1,035 1,503 189

Cambodia 6,300 35,839 100

Indonesia 16,313,800 45,682 1,608,700 61,226 186,700

Lao PDR 17,800 39,400 25,700 0Malaysia 15,194,500 18,084,860 6,845,300 41,500 9,533 758,000

Myanmar 209,300 1,416,680 1,115,500 54 0

Philippines 1,168,600 27,913 100 9,000 320,871 562,400Singapore 42,600 84,410 6,900 1,155,400 80,691 27,300

Thailand 700 46,601 200 104,900 2,035,949 493,000

Viet Nam 437,911 35,100 41,100 8,100

Total South-east Asia 32,953,600 20,219,296 9,638,635 1,351,900 2,509,827 2,035,689

12

turned to become a net roundwood exporter around 0.05 to 0.17 million cubic meters

from 1990 to 1994. Thailand was the main importer with 1.37 million cubic meters

in 1995, while Myanmar was the main exporter with 1.1 million cubic meters in

2000, thereafter increasing to 1.14 million cubic meters in 2005.

Table 2: ASEAN’s roundwood exports and imports 1990-2000

Source: FAO, FRA (2005)

2.3. Deforestation policies trend in ASEAN

Historical availability and timber price have influenced the usage of timber

for construction and other usages in different regions and cultures. Increasing

population, economic development, and increasing consumption levels have led to a

rapid growth in global aggregate demand for forest products. According to the 2004

report by Mihoko et al, producing countries such as Indonesia still enjoy export

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competitiveness in forest products as they have large remaining areas of tropical

forest. However, they are certain to be facing the need for reforestation as have

renowned log-importing countries such as Thailand and the Philippines.

Over the past decade the management of forest has been focusing on

sustainable forest management concept that aims at balancing environmental, socio-

cultural and economic objectives, in compliance with the 1992 agreement of

UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development).

Nonetheless, forest production management, as the ITTO 2000 (International

Tropical Timber Organization) initiative that encourages sustainable forest

management in tropical timber consumer countries, is focused in broader objectives.

Additionally, regional and national forest harvesting codes such as the Certification

of forest products, a market-based mechanism devised to encourage sustainable

management of forests, have been developed and received positive attention (FAO,

2000).

The economic regulation and direction imposed by governments has an

impact on forestry sector in terms of international trades. In particular, countries in

the Southeast Asia region regulate their economic in form of tariffs and non tariff

barriers such as duties and surcharges, and rules and regulation respectively. Import

restrictions policies aim at discouraging and restricting import of foreign products in

order to promote domestic activities and preserve lower economic efficiency and

welfare. On the other hand, export restrictions aim at reallocating resource in order to

boost domestic consumption. Thus countries have enough reasons to impose such

barriers. In both cases, the forest sector is directly affected by these trade policies

(FAO, 2000).

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Forest rich countries and regions have utilized Log export ban (LEB) policy

for a long time in an attempt to encourage domestic economic development. Many

countries have been actively discussing the impacts of log export bans policies. The

bans have been adopted in an attempt to reduce aggregate demand that result in

easing pressure on forest resources. Its ultimate goal is to minimize deforestation and

deprivation of forest. Nevertheless, many experts believe that declining demand due

to tightening export market would lead to lower timer price. As a result, the soaring

profitability of forest operations would lead to lower fund for forest management.

Ultimately, the large forest area will be replaced by more profitable agricultural

alternatives such as rice and coffee (Resosudarmo and Yusuf, 2006).

To maintain and increase timber harvest and supplement forest products, a

high rate of forest growth must be achieved; thus, commercial timer interests have

driven the development of reforestation policies. Nonetheless, many national and

international objectives such as soil conservation, habitats protection, watershed

maintenance, and other environmental preoccupations have continuously considered

forest preservation as promotional instrument in recent years. Re-vegetating barren

forestland, improving stock or land condition are the primary objectives of various

national forest sector strategies within the ASEAN region, with a preoccupation for

the extent of forest cover and the declining of potential productivity and economic

gain due to forest exploitation (FAO, 1997).

Many countries have moved to protect their forest under national parks

schemes or other types of conservation projects in the past two decades. The level of

protection and the effectiveness differ between countries. In some countries,

protected area covers all of their forest under the forestry legislation while many

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other countries only report legally protected areas that meet international standards.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and World Conservation Monitoring Centre

(WCMC) (1994) report that the status of ASEAN’s protected area equaled 55.2, 83

and 86.5 million hectares in 1990, 2000 and 2005 respectively. These protected

areas in 1990, 2000 and 2005 accounted for only 12.3, 18.5 and 19.3 percent

respectively of the total Southeast Asia’s land area. In 2005, the 46.5 million hectares

of Indonesia land areas were the largest national land protected followed by 11.1

million hectares in Thailand while Cambodia, Malaysia and the Philippines had 4.3,

8.3 and 6.3 million hectares respectively. Lao and Myanmar protected areas were

similar at 3.7 and 3.8 million hectares respectively. In addition, Brunei Darussalam

had the highest rate when using proportionate area protected method with 59.2

percent, Malaysia came second with 25.2 percent , and Cambodia and Indonesia third

with about 24 percent of land protected . Unfortunately, two countries’ protected

areas were under 10 percent, Singapore and Vietnam, which are associated with

positive change in forest area.

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CHAPTER THREE

LITERATURE REVIEW

This section aims to review the linkage between tropical deforestation and

timber trade. The measures of the relationship between trade in timber and

deforestation have generated a large literature in recent years. In the global literature,

reviews highlight similarity rather than differences between countries and regions. In

order to review the deforestation effect of timber export, regression models is mainly

discussed in this literature review. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a review

of the literature on the link between deforestation and timber trade at two levels,

country (regional) and multi-country levels models.

Most of single country studies used regressions to measure the correlation

between tropical deforestation and timber trade. Kummer and Sham (1994) examined

the relationship between timber trade in logging and tropical deforestation in forest

cover in the Philippines over the 1957-1980 period. In their study, Kummer and

Sham used explanatory variables related to population growth and lower

transportation costs to estimate their effect on deforestation. They found that both

explanatory variables have a positive relationship with deforestation. Furthermore,

they concluded that there are differences in the percentage of land covered by forest

and by region. Similarly, Panayotou and Sugsuwan (1994) provide a useful survey at

a national level in Thailand by sampling sixteen provinces. They developed a model

to directly investigate the effect of logging as well as other explanatory variables on

forest clearing. They empirically demonstrated that higher agricultural price,

population growth and lower transportation costs are positively associated with forest

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clearing. Furthermore, they established that the wood prices and deforestation have a

negative relationship.

Among studies which used national-level regression models in insular South

East Asia’s deforestation models, most examined deforestation in Indonesia,

Philippines and Thailand. They conclude that roundwood production, which is

measured as a logging variable, has been major cause of deforestation in South East

Asia between 1970s and 1980s (Katila 1995; Kummer and Sham 1994; Osgood

1994; Panayotou and Sungsuwan 1994). In addition, population growth is found to

have a positive relationship with deforestation (Cropper et al 1997; Katila 1995;

Kummer and Sham 1994; Panayotou and Sungsuwan 1994). However, Panayotou

and Sungsuwan (1994) found higher income was associated with less deforestation.

Nevertheless, Katila (1995) argued that there were no correlation between

deforestation and income variable.

In the context of a single country Kaimowitz and Angelson (1998) conclude

that logging is the major determinant of deforestation in South East Asia rather than

agricultural cultivation as in Latin America. However, they conclude that single-

country regression’s models may have some causality difficulties. There might be

large correlation or high muticollinearity among the independent or explanatory

variables such as population and agriculture land area and agriculture prices.

Various cross-sectional regression (muti-country regression) models to study

the link between deforestation and timber trade, have been developed at multi-

national level to estimate deforestation process of larger size and draw empirically

conclusions at a more global level. Capistrano (1990) analyzed the effect of forest

area, population, national income, external debt and exchange rate on deforestation

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in forty five developing countries during the 1967 to 1971 period. She showed that

population, agricultural export prices and exchange rate had a positive relation with

deforestation. Moreover, she concluded that high income growth leads to higher

natural resources consumption associated with greater deforestation. However, high

level of income per capita caused environment improvement in the case of high

income countries.

Rudel and Roper (1997) hypothesized that there were differences in

deforestation process in countries with small and large size of forest area. They

pointed out that external debt and rural population influence deforestation. In their

study, they investigated the effect of agricultural exports as percentage of GNP on

deforestation in the 1980-1990 in fifty one countries. Their simulation results

indicated that deforestation has a positive correlation with rural density. However,

they didn't find that income per capita, external debt and road construction might

have an effect on tropical deforestation.

Among multi-country studies that introduced total forest area, national

income and population scale as independent variables (Allen and Barnes 1985;

Capistrano 1990; Kant and Redants 1997; Rudel 1989). According to Capistrano

(1990), higher income was found to be associated with more utilization of forest and

agriculture products, resulting in greater deforestation. Moreover, pressure on forest

conservation is occurring in higher income countries. However, some authors claim

that Latin America’s higher income countries are significantly associated with a

lower lost of forest area (Palo and Lehto 1996). Furthermore, they found that

fuelwood consumption, which is a great part of forest production, and high income

are negatively correlated.

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Most of the authors hypothesized that population is positively correlated with

forest area decline. Population growth was found to be a determinant of

deforestation. Burgess (1991), Palo et al (1987) and Rudel and Roper (1996) found

that higher population growth was highly associated with greater decreasing in forest

cover area. Nevertheless, Burgess (1991) and Inman (1990) argue that higher

deforestation was significant associated with lower population growth.

Other factors found in multi-country regression studies are the direct sources

of forest clearing which is defined as yield expansion. Increasing crop land area is a

major source of deforestation (Kaimowitz and Angelsen 1998). However, Burgress

(1993) argues that fuelwood and logging removing do not correlate with complete

deforestation. Most national regression models have been concerned about

agriculture and logging variables that effect deforestation. Therefore, increasing in

agriculture area, per capita food production, roundwood production and timber

exports are significantly associated with greater deforestation, as shown in table 3.

Moreover, Capistrano (1990), Gullison and Losos (1993) and Kant and Redantz

(1997) state that agricultural and roundwood export price variables, which are

associated with enhanced trade of agricultural and forest product export, benefit

from forest converting. According to Kant and Redantz (1997), timber exports are

significant in the case of Asia, but the impact on deforestation is greater in Latin

America.

Few studies have included forest protected area as defined governments in

economic deforestation model. Implementing forest’s protected area diminishes the

probability of deforestation occurring (Deininger and Minten 1996; Krutilla et al

1995). However, Kaimowitz and Angelsen (1998) underlie limitations of such

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studies due to missing variable, heteroskedasticity, muticollinearity and small

number’s degree of freedom. They suggest that these problems will possibly be

solved by adding explanatory variables interactions to verify the effect of each

others. Most of authors employ data from forest resources assessment and production

yearbooks of FAO. Reliability of data from FAO is acceptable for global

deforestation’s model (Rudel and Roper 1997).

In sum, the link between tropical deforestation and timber trade has been

studied in single country and at a cross-countries level. The advantage of single

country’s study is that it allows to directly determine the impact of trade policy on

tropical deforestation. At the same time, the advantage of cross-country studies is

that it allows to classify alternative traders and to measure the impact of deforestation

on region (Barbier, Burgess and Strand, 1995). The linkage between agriculture,

logging, income and population variables; and deforestation in national-country

regression models is showed in table 3 as below.

Page 27: Deforest as Ion Asia

StudyDependent

variableExplanatory

variables Effect Main featureSource offorest data

Allen and

Barnes (1985)

Decreasing

inforest area

Population No effect

The panel analysis between1968 and 1978 of 39

countries presented thatdeforestation is related toincreases in agriculture inthe short term, and woodproduction for export is

related to deforestation inthe long term.

FAO

yearbooksIncome No effect

Agriculture Increase

Logging Increase

Bawa and

Dayanandan(1997)

Decreasing

inforest area

Population IncreaseDeforestation is positiverelated to increasing in

agricultural production inAsia, Africa and Latin

America. However, loggingwas associated with

deforestation only in Asiaand Latin America.

FAO, WRI

(1994)

Income No effect

Agriculture Increase

Logging Increase

Burgess

(1993)

Decreasing

inforest area

Population Increase Logging removal is morecontroversial. Many authorsargue these activities onlyharmful forests. However,

Logging usually is notassociated with complete

deforestation.

Lany(1998)Income Increase

Agriculture NA

Logging Increase

Kant and

Redantz(1997)

Decreasing

inforest area

Population Increase They find that one hectareof agricultural expansion

lead to 2.8 hectares ofdeforestation in Africa, andto 0.5 hectares in Asia and

Latin America.

FRA, FAO

(1990)

Income Increase

Agriculture Increase

Logging Increase

Mainardi

(1996)

Decreasing

inforest area

Population NA Higher national incomesper capita in developingcountries are associated

with higher forest clearingduring the period of 1980sfor 48 countries in sample.

WRI

(1994),FAO

Income Increase

Agriculture Increase

Logging No effect

21

Table 3: Summarize literature survey on deforestation in national-country regressionmodel

Page 28: Deforest as Ion Asia

StudyDependent

variableExplanatory

variables Effect Main featureSource offorest data

Palo et al.

(1996)Forest cover

Population Increase They find that increasing in

incomes for Latin Americalead to deceasing in

deforestation. However,they show the finding forother regions are opposite

effect.

FRA, FAO

(1990)Income Increase

Agriculture Increase

Logging No effect

Rudel (1989)Decreasing

inforest area

Population IncreaseBy using 36 countries insample for 15 years since1976, the study find that

affect of deforestation rateshave high proportion with

large forest areas especiallyin Brazil, Indonesia and

Papua New Guinea.

FRA, FAO

(1980)Income Increase

Agriculture No effect

Logging No effect

Rudel and

Roper (1997)

Decreasing

inforest area

Population Increase Higher deforestation isassociated with greater

income per capita level for1976-90 for countries thathave small forest areas.

Estimates

by authors

Income IncreaseAgriculture NA

Logging Increase

22

Source: Compiled by the authorNA= Not applicable

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CHAPTER FOUR

DATA AND MODEL SPECIFICATION

In the previous sections some background issues on Southeast Asian’s

deforestation and timber trade were discussed. Then a brief review of literature and

other studies were presented. The data description the source of data and econometric

model are now explained.

4.1. Specification of variables

The sample consisted of the nine ASEAN developing countries listed in

Appendix 1. Due to data availability and missing data, Singapore is the only AEAN

country excluded from our sample. This country has a zero rate of deforestation. The

study design is a panel analysis of Southeast Asian countries across the 1990-2005

period with a total of 134 observations.

4.1.1. Annual change in forest area (rate of deforestation)

The total of forest area is used to measure the deforestation rate defined as the

annual percentage change in forest cover during a period. According to FAO

organization (FRA, 2005), the definition of forest cover includes the area of bamboo

and palm surface, open and closed forests as national protected parks, windbreaks

and firebreak, protected areas as history and culture areas. However, forest area doest

not include agriculture and urban extended land use, or garden and urban parks. The

rate of change in forest is measured by the change in units of forest cover of 1000

hectares. This study defined rate of forest degradation as the annually change in

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are

24

forest area. The annually percent change rate of forest area was calculated by

dividing the forest area of the current year (t) by the forest area of the previous year

(t-1) levels, subtracting 1 and dividing by the number of years considered:

areat areat1 1

areat1

number of years

Deforestation rate, which is defined as the annual change in forest area, is

employed to estimate the correlation between timber trade and tropical deforestation.

Due to up-to-date data availability, annual 1990 to 2005 data were used. Data on

deforestation rate was mainly taken from the FAOSTAT statistical database of the

Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations (FAO, 2005). Because of

data availability in the past, most studies have employed FAO data for performing

multi-country regression to estimate over ten year the change of deforestation rate.

However, this study used recent FAO data available year by year, which made an

analysis of the deforestation on a yearly basis possible.

4.1.2. Explanatory variables

Growth of GDP per capita

Growth of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, in constant 2000 US

dollar, reflects national income level and socioeconomic development. In this

context, there is a positive relationship between national income level and

environmental degradation. High growth of GDP may lead to an increase in demand

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25

for forest and agriculture production and can be associated with deforestation.

However, a high GDP growth may slow down and decrease the deforestation. In high

GDP countries, there is a demand for environmental protection, which protects from

deforestation (Culas, 2006). The data are directly sourced from the world

development online indicators of the World Bank database.

Population growth rate

Population growth rate, which is an indicator of socioeconomic

developments, might be related to deforestation rate and economic growth. Growth

rate of total population is the annual rate change of of a country population size

calculated at mid-year. Population is a determinant of the demand for forest product

and land use, which might result in deforestation. Therefore, this study hypothesizes

that the coefficient of relationship between change in forest area and population

growth should be positive. In this study, all population indicators were obtained from

the database of United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,

Population Division, 2006.

Agricultural production index

The agricultural production index consists of all crop and livestock products

produced in each country over the period 1999 to 2001. The agricultural production

index refers to the agricultural component of economic growth in developing

countries. The increase in agricultural production index could boost GDP. Export of

crops and labor might cause deforestation. Therefore, the variable of Agricultural

production index is assumed to be positive in its relation with deforestation. The

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26

original data set was taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations (FAO) 2005, FAOSTAT Online Statistical Service.

Trade in forest product (roundwood export)

Data on trade in forest product were drawn from the 2007 FAOSTAT on-line

statistical service of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2005

Edition). There is commercial timber harvesting for roundwood export between

countries. Increasing roundwood products might be associated with greater forest

production which could also be leading source of decline in forest cover. However,

the roundwood export has declined over time from 1980, and has represented a small

amount of forest products (roundwood production) in each ASEAN country.

Furthermore, commercial timber export may not be a key factor leading to

deforestation. Its rather the roundwood export that might be a key factor to use in a

ASEAN’s deforestation model. Roundwood export is hypothesized to be positively

correlated with the decline in forest clearing.

Harvested area (agriculture land)

The total harvested area is the total area used for agriculture. Agriculture land

is defined as arable land under permanent harvest, as wheat, barley, maize, rye, oats,

millet, sorghum, rice, quinoa, and rice lands (FAO, 2005). The expansion of

agricultural area is commonly associated with degradation of forest area. In the

ASEAN case, rice which is the main agricultural production is assumed to be

associated with deforestation. Data were taken from the FAO database (2005).

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27

Government restrictions (protected area)

Governments might impose restrictions on protected areas through its

environment policy and regulation on public goods. The protected area variable used

in this study is the total area to be protected for its biodiversity as defined by the

World Conservation Union (IUCN). The dataset is taken from the 2006 World

Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). This study hypothesizes that a greater

protected area is associated with a lower deforestation. In addition, according to data

trends, protected areas imply that country with severe deforestation have a greater

protected areas implementation.

4.2. Data sources

The dataset used in the study are original data coming from the FAO (2005),

the World Bank (World development Indicators, WDI) and the United Nations

Statistics Division. Data on forest areas (annual change in forest area or decline in

deforestation) came from the FAO (FRA, 2005) which provides more reliable and

up-to-date data on yearly forest area. The regression was performed using a panel

dataset from 1990 to 2005. Details on the variables, the variables units and the

expected coefficient sign are described and summarized in table 4 as below.

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Variable Explanation Unit SourceExpected

sign*

FORCH Rate of annually change in forest

area (decreasing in rate change offorest area is equal todeforestation)

%

www.fao.org

POPG Population growth % www.un.org Negative

GDPGGDP per capita growth

(in 2000 market price)

% World Bank

(WDI, 2007)Negative

RWEX Roundwood exportmillion

ha www.fao.org Negative

AGRL Agriculture landmillion

ha www.fao.org Negative

AGRPI Agriculture production index

Base

year(1999-2001)

www.fao.org Negative

PROTA Protected areamillion

ha

www.unep-

wcmc.orgPositive

28

Table 4: Details of variables

*expected sign for Rate of annually change in forest area is defined as change

in forest growth. Therefore, if rate change of forest area is associated with negative

sign, there is deforestation occurring.

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HAPTER FIVE

THE ECONOMETRIC MODEL AND RESULTS

In the previous parts of this study report, the definitions of the deforestation

explanatory variables were presented. This section will explain the econometric

model, and provide the regression results.

5.1.1 The econometric model

The model aims at measuring that the influence on f forest area changes, of

the following variables: export of forest products, agriculture production, economic

development and land use. This study suggests that the explanatory variables have

influenced most of the key causes of deforestation degradation found in the literature.

In this study’s model, the dependent variable is the rate of decline in forest area

which is defined as the annual change in forest cover. The explanatory variables are

provided in table 1 above. Since, panel data which include time series and cross-

sectional data is used, i is defined as countries and t as year. The coefficients of the

variables are provided by , the error term by it and the constant by it .

The ASEAN deforestation’s empirical model is represented as:

FORCH it it1POPG it 2GDPPCG it 3RWEX it

4AGRL it 5AGRPI it 6PROTA it it

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30

Where; FORCH it

POPG it

GDPPCG it

RWEX it

AGRL it

AGRPI it

PROTA it

= Rate of annually change in forest area

= Population growth

= GDP per capita growth (in 2000 market price)

= Roundwood export

= Agriculture land

= Agriculture production index

= Protected area

Three major methods, simple pooled regression, fix effects and random

effects, were tested to estimate the coefficient values for ASEAN’s deforestation.

Due to data limitation for RWEX (roundwood export), this study had to exclude one

country, Singapore. The study econometric model determines the relationship

between deforestation and the net impact of income, socioeconomics development,

wood use and restriction by the governments. Since, panel data methods are

employed in this analysis, the limited number of observations, the small degree of

freedom and high high collinearity between the independent variables are reduced

and resolved by using random and fix effects methods. Further information on the

limitations and advantages of applying the method of panel data can be found in

study of Batagi (1995) and Hsiao (1986). For testing the fixed effects method against

the random effects regression, this study applied the Hausman test statistics to select

the most appropriate method.

Data description and correlation matrix checking are presented in Appendix

2. Agricultural production index and agricultural land are assumed to be greatly

correlated with population growth and protected area respectively. Multicollinearity

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between independent variables is not thought to be that main factor that might cause

a problem of this study. Because of missing observations for some cross-section

units, the unbalanced panel is applied to resolve general attrition.

5.1.2. Results and discussion

Table 1 presents the final results for the ASEAN’s deforestation regressions

on the effects of the chosen explanatory variables on the growth rate of forest area.

Table 5: Results

Dependent variable: annually change in forest area (decline in forest cover)Pool

Independent regressi Fixed Randomvariable

POPG

on

-0.754

Prob

0.006***

effects

-0.728

Prob

0.031**

effects

-0.754

Prob

0.005***(0.271) (0.334) (0.271)

GDPPCG 0.059 0.034** 0.079 0.030** 0.059 0.033**(0.028) (0.036) (0.028)

RWEX 0.037 0.314 0.0305 0.467 0.037 0.313(0.036) (0.0418) (0.0367)

AGRPI -0.015 0.019** -0.015 0.253 -0.015 0.018**(0.0065) (0.013) (0.0065)

AGRL -0.0585 0.080* -0.0622 0.184 -0.0585 0.078*(0.0332) (0.0465) (0.0332)

PROTA 0.0171 0.589 0.0215 0.604 0.0171 0.588

(0.0316) (0.0413) (0.0316)

Constant 2.35 0.033** 2.228324 0.092* 2.350074 0.031**

(1.0891) (1.3108) (1.0891)

dfR squaredF statistics(df)

1270.2725.53

1130.20475.14

-0.27-

***Significant at 0.01 level; **Significant at 0.05 level; *Significant at 0.10 level.Standard errors are in (parenthesis)

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All coefficient independent variables in three regression methods are presented, as

well as their standard deviation and the probability estimation.

Population factor and deforestation

The results confirm that the increase in population growth is associated with

spoil of forest area. The coefficient relating population growth to forest area change

(all about1 = -0.7) shows a negative relationship and is significant at 0.01 and 0.05

level for pool regression and random effects, and fixed effects, respectively. A

negative coefficient indicates that ASEAN’s countries with high population growth

rate also have high rate of deforestation. Therefore, the study’s finding strengthens

previous studies showing that population growth is positively correlated with forest

degradation (Cropper et al 1997; Katila 1995; Kummer and Sham 1994; Panayotou

and Sungsuwan 19994). In ASEAN’s countries, population factor plays an important

role in deforestation.

Income and deforestation

GDP growth in connection with increasing natural resources consumption has

been regarded as one factor of deforestation. The results of our study indicate that the

coefficients for GDP per capita growth ( 2 = 0.059, 0.079 for pool regression and

random effects, and fixed effects, respectively) are positive and significant at the

0.05 level. A positive correlation implies that an increasing GDP growth is

associated with decreasing deforestation. According to Palo and Lehto (1996), higher

income in Latin America countries is significantly associated with lower

deforestation. Our result confirms this study. Our finding, however, is different from

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Capistrano's results (1990) that state that higher income is associated with more

forest and agriculture products, resulting in greater loss of forest area.

Roundwood export and deforestation

The regression results find an inverse relationship between Roundwood

exports and annual change in forest area suggesting that increasing forest products

exports increase annual change of forest area, by declining deforestation rate. The

most important finding is that roundwood exports in ASEAN’s countries were not

significantly correlated to deforestation. As mentioned earlier, this result may be due

to the fact that roudwood exports contributed to a small among of forest production

in the case of ASEAN countries during the 1990 to 2005 period. Therefore, this

multi-country regression suggests that in Southeast Asia roundwood export may not

be an important reason for the decline in forest cover. This finding is consistent with

the finding by Rudel (1989) that there is no effect of timber exports on deforestation

in national country regression models. Rudel suggested that agricultural and timber

export were not associated with increasing deforestation. The demand for timber did

not account also for a large amount of deforestation in Africa and Latin American.

Agriculture land and production, and deforestation

The coefficients in the agriculture land and production are statistically

significant at 0.05 and 0.1 levels, respectively. But they were not found significant

when the fixed effects method was used. In line with this study model, higher levels

of agriculture land and production are related with an increased the loss of forest

area, thereby with higher deforestation. This finding is consistent with most previous

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results that showed that agriculture land and production imply an expansion of land

for crop use. Increasing agriculture land leads to an increase in deforestation (Kant

and Redantz 1997; Mainardi 1996). Higher food production is associated with lower

loss in forest area (Bergess 1991; Palo et al 1987). According to our results, a 1%

increase in agriculture production decreased forest area by 0.015%. And a 1 million

hectares increase in agriculture land led to an increase deforestation by 0.0585%.

Protected area and deforestation

Government policy and restriction leading to an expansion of protected area

has been considered as one major contributor to the growth of forest area. Higher

protected area is associated with lower deforestation. However, the coefficient of

protected area ( 2 = 0.059, 0.079 for pool regression and random effects, and fixed

effects, respectively), although positive as expected, is not statistically significant.

This implies that there is no correlation between deforestation and protected area in

the case of Southeast Asia. This supports the argument that protection area might be

ineffective regarding protected area management. In fact, illegal logging is known to

take place in protected area because of poor law enforcement (Najam et al 2007).

Croper et al (1997) have shown that protected forest area did not decrease the chance

of forest decline in Thailand.

Hausman test

This study has used panel data regressions to build a multi-country

deforestation model for developing countries. Fixed effects and random effects were

employed to estimate cross-section data from 1990 to 2005. In the case of

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35

correlation, a fixed effect estimation is necessary when there is a risk of bias due to

omitted variables. In contrast, in case there is no correlation, the random effects

method is appropriate (Greene, 1997). When there is a need to choose between the

random effects and the fixed effects approaches under panel data estimation, the

Hausman technique is employed.

the Hausman test provided Prob>chi2 = 0.9904. According to Stock and

Watson (2003), when there is an insignificant P-value, which is defined as Prob>chi2

greater than 0.05, using the random effects method is appropriate. But, when the P-

value is significant, the random effects method should be preferred to the fixed

effects method. Therefore, the random effect is the preferred approach to produce

estimates in the panel data regressions.

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CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

This work used a quantitative model to study the effect of GDP per capita

growth, population growth, agricultural land change and production in forest

products, on deforestation, across ASEAN countries over the 1990 –2005 period of

time. Results from regression suggest that population growth, agricultural land use

and agricultural production directly aggravate deforestation. However, timber export

is not likely to influence deforestation. Also, protected area change tends not to

hamper loss of forest area.

A panel-data analysis for Southeast Asia countries, excluding Singapore,

showed that the random effects method is appropriate to study deforestation in

ASEAN. The conclusions from this study are that population growth, agricultural

land use and production can influence deforestation. These results are consistent with

previous findings that there is a positive relationship between deforestation and

population growth, agricultural land use and production. An interesting finding of

this study was that roundwood export had no statistically influence on deforestation

for the Southeast Asia case. As discussed above, this result may be due to the size of

roundwood export in the ASEAN.

In the past 16 years, forestry policies have increased rapidly in Southeast

Asia. In fact, the increase in protected area may be regarded as a measure to counter

severe deforestation. However, protected area does not necessarily lead to reduced

deforestation. This can be explained by the fact that governments are not always able

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to enforce regulation on protected areas such as punishment for illegal logging. Thus

forestry policy needs to be strengthened in ASEAN countries.

Considering the significant effect and negative sign of the growth of GDP per

capita on deforestation as appeared in all pool regressions, fixed effects and random

effects methods, the results from this study suggest that strengthening poverty

reduction would reduce deforestation. One percent increase in GDP will reduce

deforestation by 0.06 to 0.08 percent. Thus, it might be more effective to focus

efforts on poverty reduction for controlling deforestation, rather than to limit

population growth, agricultural land use and agricultural production. Therefore, the

paper brings out a number of policy implications. The most significant is the

importance of poverty reduction in Southeast Asia countries for effective forest

conservation in long term.

It is recommended that further studies are conducted to better understand the

effect of political, institution and government policies in the field of forestry policies.

It is suggested that modeling techniques should improve in the future, as will data

quality for use in regressions on deforestation. Further models will certainly be more

appropriate to overcome the limited degrees of freedom of the regressions.

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Variable Mean SD Min Max Obs

Rate of annually change in forest area -0.807 1.266 -3.196 2.522 135

Population growth 1.893 0.645 0.7 3.526 135

GDP per capita growth 3.539 3.888 -14.238 12.467 134Roundwood export 1.194 3.184 0 19.511 144

Agriculture production index 90.298 21.040 33 142.8 144

Agriculture land 12.148 12.712 0.013 47.8 144Protected area 8.211 12.141 0.011 46.536 144

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: List of countries

Brunei DarussalamCambodiaIndonesiaLao PDRMalaysiaMyanmarPhilippinesThailandViet Nam

Appendix 2: Descriptive statistics

Appendix 3: Correlation matrix

FORCH POPG GDPPCG RWEX AGRPI AGRL PROTAFORCH 1.0000

POPG -0.0306 1.0000GDPPCG 0.2249 -0.2685 1.0000

RWEX 0.0681 0.2232 0.1237 1.0000AGRPIAGRL

-0.1186-0.2975

-0.5496-0.5241

0.18830.0302

0.0053-0.0736

1.00000.2851 1.0000

PROTA -0.3282 -0.3397 -0.0530 0.0215 0.2726 0.9411 1.0000