Deforestation in Sub- Sahara Africa

Abstract

According to FAO (2005) about 13 million hectares of the word’s forest are lost due to deforestation. Naoto (2006) found Africa to lead the list of countries with the highest rate of deforestation. This worrisome situation is further aggravated by the possible negative impacts of climate change due to an increase in the mean global temperature. Evidence supports that Africa is most likely to suffer the most the devastating impacts of natural calamities such as droughts and floods. This paper sought to evaluate the causes of deforestation in 27 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Our model uses annual data spanning from 1990 to 2004. Trade and urban population tend to be associated with a decline in deforestation. On the other hand, we found strong evidence of the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve with regards to deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, our results suggest that countries with a floating exchange rate regime have the highest rate of deforestation. Should future deforestation in SSA continue at the present pace, the associated costs to their already weakened economies may be substantial?