Deforestation, Land Use, and Property Rights: Empirical Evidence from Darién, Panama

Economic conventional wisdom suggests that providing land users with more secure property rights will result in more sustainable land use and less deforestation. In this paper, we use spatial econometric techniques to evaluate quantitatively the effect on land use of designated property rights in th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land economics 2001-05, Vol.77 (2), p.187-205
Main Authors: Nelson, Gerald C., Harris, Virginia, Stone, Steven W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Cost estimates
Datasets
Deforestation
Developing countries
Economic models
Employment
Environmental protection
Forests
Indigenous populations
Labor market
Labor productivity
Land economics
Land use
LDCs
Panama
Pixels
Property rights
Rural areas
Socioeconomics
Studies
Sustainability
Sustainable agriculture
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Summary:Economic conventional wisdom suggests that providing land users with more secure property rights will result in more sustainable land use and less deforestation. In this paper, we use spatial econometric techniques to evaluate quantitatively the effect on land use of designated property rights in three parts of Darién province-a national park where no human activity is supposed to occur, and two reserves for indigenous peoples. Results suggest that legal property rights for an indigenous population can influence land use. Geography appears to be more important than legal protection for the national park.
ISSN:0023-7639
1543-8325
DOI:10.2307/3147089