Institutions and Policies

Abstract

In the last two chapters, the relevance of the deforestation theories and hypotheses of Chapter 2 was examined, using the example of the Ecuadorean Sierra. This chapter completes the picture with empirical observations concerning issues such as land tenure, resource-access rules and different types of development institution, making reference to the corresponding theoretical approaches discussed in Chapter 2. In each case, we will start with the general policies, and then explore the specific implications for forests. It will be argued that, in spite of the existence of legislation and institutions for forest protection, on the whole public policies have reinforced the trend towards deforestation, although they do not seem to have constituted root causes that would imply qualitative changes of development patterns on the frontier.