Join the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics (DAED) Economic Outlook & Policy Webinar for a book talk featuring Brent Sohngen and Douglas Southgate, who will be discussing their new book, Reversing Deforestation.
Decried as environmental vandalism, deforestation in places such as the Brazilian Amazon has grabbed international headlines. Although forest losses are alarming and a cause for serious concern, broader trends are now bending in the direction of forest recovery. In Reversing Deforestation, Brent Sohngen and Douglas Southgate skillfully explore how and why incentives to replace tree-covered habitats with farms and ranches are declining in Latin America primarily due to slower population growth and sustained advances in agricultural productivity. For rural people in the region to be able to deforest less and afforest more in response to shifting incentives, they must have property rights. Local ownership is likewise a prerequisite for conservation payments, which are intended to promote carbon sequestration and prevent the loss of biological diversity. By furthering a transition from deforestation to afforestation, the resultant effectively-managed forest landscape will be more resilient, as is needed to overcome climate change.
