Deforestation and the environmental Kuznets curve: A cross-national investigation of intervening mechanisms

Objective. We draw on ecological modernization theory and international political economy arguments to examine the sources of an environmental Kuznets curve (or EKC) that produces an inverted U-shaped rate of deforestation relative to economic development. Method. We use ordinary least squares regression with White's ( 1978) correction Cor possible heteroskedasticity to examine the rate of deforestation (1980-1995) in less developed countries. Results. Net of controls for initial forest stock and the quality of deforestation estimates, we find strong evidence for an EKC driven by (1) agglomeration effects linked to the level of urbanization, (2) rural-to-urban migration that partially offsets rural population pressure, (3) the growth of services-dominated urban economies, and (4) strong democratic states. We Find little evidence that foreign debt or export dependence influence the deforestation rate. Conclusions. Although deforestation continues to pose pressing and potentially irreversible environmental risks, there is evidence of self-corrective ecological and modernization processes inherent in development that act to mitigate these risks. Deforestation is a pressing environmental problem involving permanent loss of species, soil degradation, impact on global climate change, and long-term resource depletion. Of the approximately 3.4 billion hectares of forest land that existed around the globe in 1980, approximately 5 percent had been cleared by 1995 (FAO, 1997). Although some decline in the rate of deforestation has been detected in the 1990s (with rapid deforestation in some regions being offset by uneven decreases in Brazil and reforestation in some developed nations), there is no guarantee of abatement in the near future (World Resources Institute, 2000). Given the inextricable links between forest cover and biodiversity, soil quality, and atmospheric replenish-ment, understanding the causes and consequences of deforestation must be central to both natural and social environmental science. Of the various forms of environmental degradation, deforestation holds a special appeal because (1) the felling of trees is spatially fixed and therefore more amenable to study, (2) deforestation is unambiguously due to human activities, and (3) the loss of forest cover is uniquely intertwined with nearly all other forms of environmental degradation. This article extends and improves on prior cross-national analyses of deforestation. Whereas most past studies have been empirical and descriptive, more recent investigations have been more theoretical, emphasizing modernization processes, demographic pressures, and dependency/world systems constraints (e.g., Rock, 1996; Rudel and Roper, 1997; Ehrhardt-Martinez, 1998, 1999). As a part of this theorizing, the existence and implications of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) have garnered increasing attention. Given that the actual meaning of this curvilinear relationship between development and deforestation depends heavily on the intervening mechanisms linking the two, the purpose of this investigation is first to establish the existence of an EKC for deforestation and then to examine various competing explanations for this pattern.