The Cultural Roots of Deforestation in Africa

Nicolas Berman (), Mathieu Couttenier () and Raphael Soubeyran
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Nicolas Berman: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Mathieu Couttenier: CERGIC - Center for Economic Research on Governance, Inequality and Conflict - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research

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Abstract: We study the relationship between culture and environmental conservation through the lens of deforestation. Focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 2001-2021, we show that changes of national leaders affect deforestation in a way that depends on the environmental culture of their ethnic group's. We use data on folklore to measure the importance of forests in group-specific culture. We find that deforestation and land-intensive activities increase in the ethnic homelands of leaders whose ethnic groups have no or little forest-related culture. These patterns are reversed when the leader's group has a salient forest culture. Our results suggest that culture is an important lever for environmental conservation in Africa.

Keywords: Culture; Deforestation; Politics; Folklore; Ethnicity; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11-25
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