Title
Unintended Impacts from Forest Certification: Evidence from Indigenous Aka Households in Congo
Recommended Citation
Postprint version. Published in Ecological Economics, Volume 166, September 1, 2019.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106378.
Abstract
Does Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of “responsible” commercial forestry change nutrition, health and wealth for indigenous peoples, like the Aka of the Congo Basin? Using hand-collected data from the boundary of a certified and an uncertified forest in the Republic of Congo five years after certification, I compare nutrition, health, and wealth using questions that are locally salient and survey timing designed to reach seminomadic hunter-gatherers. Though I only observe outcomes after certification, using a spatial regression discontinuity design I find suggestive evidence that activities to satisfy forest certification may cause increased food insecurity and illness frequency for Aka households. I find no evidence of increased material wealth; instead, the poorest 15th percentile is poorer for Aka households. Non-Aka households are unaffected. Activities to satisfy FSC include a road connection, likely requested by non-Aka households, which in combination with hunting restrictions may decrease food security for Aka hunter-gatherers.
Disciplines
Economics
Copyright
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Number of Pages
13
Publisher statement
CC BY-NC-ND
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/econ_fac/159