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Abstract
The empirical link between governance and illegal logging is widely accepted amongst scientist, although a minority still purports that illegal logging does not necessarily prevail because of poor governance. However, the nexus linking governance, illegal logging and carbon emission is not well enshrined in scientific literature. This paper seeks to review the literature on illegal logging and governance and empirically investigate the effect of illegal logging and governance effectiveness on carbon emission. Using panel dynamic ordinary least square method on data covering three Congo Basin timber-producing countries and three Asian timber-producing countries, this paper further investigates disaggregated effects between these two groups of countries. The empirical evidence underscores that Congo Basin timber-producing countries are characterised by increasing trend of illegal logging, poor governance effectiveness and corruption. Panel regression reveals a positive and significant impact of illegal logging, governance effectiveness and corruption on carbon emission. Asian producing countries depict a reducing trend in illegal logging and improvements in governance and corruption. There is a positive but not significant impact of illegal logging on carbon emission, and governance effectiveness reduces carbon emission. Thus, the dynamics of governance, illegal logging and carbon emission is not the same between timber-producing countries in Asia and Congo producing counties, thus suggesting the ability of institutions to curb illegal logging and enforce laws to reduce the effects of carbon emission. Multi-stakeholder consultations, government engagement, partnerships and training of control staff can help curb corruption. Legality checks should go beyond having legal documents to effectively check and control of timber concessions and small-scale logging.
Highlights
Changes in land use account for 20% of global net anthropogenic carbon emissions, and tropical developing countries account for most of this through deforestation and forest degradation
These variables permitted the estimation of the level of corruption, how it contributes to illegal logging, government effectiveness which captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the civil service quality and the degree of its independence from political pressures, policy formulation, implementation policy and the credibility of the government’s commitment to such policies
A small group of researchers assert that illegal logging does not necessarily prevail due to poor governance
Summary
Changes in land use account for 20% of global net anthropogenic carbon emissions, and tropical developing countries account for most of this through deforestation and forest degradation Press 2014) with timber logging as one of the key agents (Putz et al 2012). These forests account for 69% of contemporary and 27% of historic carbon emissions from the tropics (Putz and Romero 2014; Baccini et al 2017). When the local temperature and soil conditions over large area of land are affected as a result of timber logging, carbon emission becomes more visible and evident (Pearson et al 2017a). In most parts of the tropics, tropical forests emit more carbon than they can absorb, logging is often illegal and unsustainable (Richardson et al 2016; Gerwing 2002), and illegal logging can be defined as all logging or related activities which are inconsistent with the law (Gerwing 2006)
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