The worldwide concern with deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia is motivated not only by the irreversible loss of this natural wealth, but also by the perception that it is a destructive process in which the social and economic gains are smaller than the environmental losses. This perception also...

This article focuses mainly on the five primary case study countries. For forest impacts, the concentration is on forest conversion to other land uses and deforestation, defined as a (temporary or permanent) removal of trees to less than 10 percent crown cover, which is similar to the Food and...

Recent work has suggested that tropical forest and savanna represent alternative stable states, which are subject to drastic switches at tipping points, in response to changes in rainfall patterns and other drivers. Deforestation cost studies have ignored the likelihood and possible economic...

The Amazon rainforest, the world's largest tropical rainforest and an important constituent of the global biosphere, continues degrading by rapid deforestation, which is expected to continue despite policies to prevent it. Current international funding to protect the Amazon rainforest focuses on...

We review claims linking both payments for carbon and poverty to deforestation. We examine these effects empirically for Costa Rica during the late 20th century using an econometric approach that addresses the irreversibilities in deforestation. We find significant effects of the relative...

How does an oil boom affect the forest cover of tropical oil-exporting countries? What macroeconomic linkages and policies are decisive? A comparison of research findings on long-run land-use changes in eight tropical developing economies reveals that the direct physical impacts of the oil...

A spatial econometric model is used to link road upgrading to forest clearing and biodiversity loss in the moist tropical forests of Bolivia, Cameroon, and Myanmar. Using 250-meter cells, the model estimates the relationship between the rate of forest clearing in a cell and its distance to the...

A rainforest can be modeled as a dynamic asset subject to various risks, including risk of fire. Any small part of the forest can be in one of two states: either untouched by forest fire, or already damaged by fire, in which case there is both a local forest loss and increased dryness over a...