Changing agents of deforestation: From state-initiated to enterprise driven processes, 1970–2000

A meta-analysis of 268 case studies of tropical forest cover change indicates that deforestation shifted from a state initiated to an enterprise driven process between 1970 and 2000. During the 1970s state run road building and colonization programs opened up regions for settlement and deforestation throughout the tropics. By the 1990s these programs had all but disappeared. Meanwhile, enterprise driven processes, present in the 1970s, had both expanded and diversified by the 1990s. The implications of these findings for theories of forest cover change and for forest conservation policy are explored.