Forests and Human Development: An Analysis of the Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Global Forest Area Changes(<Special Issue>FORCOM 2011)

This study examined the impacts of socio-economic factors on forest area change by human development level of countries. Cluster analysis and panel data analysis were combined to solve the problem of heterogeneity in panel data analysis and the problem of data availability to some extent. The results show that many socio-economic factors have negative impacts on forest area in countries at low levels of human development, but their impacts become positive in countries at higher levels of human development, such as rate of rural population, adult literacy rate, and GDP per capita. The findings of this research remind decision makers to pay attention to increasing countries' level of human development when attempting to prevent deforestation, because people in higher human development index countries tend to be more protective of forests.