SEMID - IHEAL/CREDA

International Trade, Industrialization and Forest conservation: A study of the Log Export Ban Policy in Gabon

Marie-Luce BiaZafinikamia, PhD candidate

Institute of Economic and Social Development Studies (IIEDES - University Paris 1)

Registration at semid@univ-paris3.fr

IHEAL [amphithéâtre, 1er étage], 28 rue Saint Guillaume, 75007 - Paris.

 

Abstract: Forbidding the exportations of roundwood is a commonly used trade policy despite its many detractors. It is a subject of heated debates and raises controversies amongst scholars but also between scholars and policy makers. The aim of restricting roundwood export is twofold: to foster economic development through industrialization and to protect forest resources by hampering, or preventing, deforestation. The consensus amongst the detractors of Log Export Ban (LEB) is that such policy fails to achieve neither of its objectives. Not only that, LEB is perverse and creates economic distortions that make the country worse-off.  Yet, countries continue to adopt LEB- partial or total - as part of their national economic development strategy. Furthermore the countries that have enacted LEB years or decades ago do not remove them. This paper addresses this apparent paradox through an analysis of the first observable impacts of the  LEB promulgated in Gabon in 2010. Gabon has a very low population density, a low deforestation rate and its forestry sector is predominantly run by foreign investors. Because of these specificities, LEB in Gabon might lead to a much better outcome than in other countries.

Marie-Luce BiaZafinikamia holds a Masters in Development Economics from Sciences Po Paris. She is currently affiliated as a PhD candidate to the Institute of Economic and Social Development Studies at University Paris 1.  She is working on forest land allocation policies and property rights over forest land in Central Africa, specifically in Gabon. Her doctoral researches have been founded by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); she was the principal investigator for CIFOR’s projects in Gabon for 2 years.She is specialized in Agriculture and Rural Economics in developing countries. She has extensive experience in this field and has worked as a research assistant and project manager in Vietnam, Thailand, India, Cameroon and Gabon. She also has experience in impact evaluation methods in France, where she worked for J Pal (Poverty Action Lab).

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