Title

Unintended Impacts from Forest Certification: Evidence from Indigenous Aka Households in Congo

Author Info

Jacqueline M. Doremus, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis ObispoFollow

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