CRB: The Causes of Tropical Deforestation: Quantitative and Comparative Analyses

砍伐热带森林被认为是主要的 造成生物多样性丧失和 最终可能导致全球变暖。 虽然人类活动已被确定为热带气候变化的主要原因， 森林砍伐，相对较少的注意力集中在 个人和群体（无论是 非正式地或在更正式的组织单位中一起） 做出导致森林砍伐的决定。 该项目将 发展和测试一种理论，确定两种形式的人类行为， 人们采取行动砍伐热带森林的手段。 的一种形式 行动是通过发展“增长联盟”， 以相对协调的方式建立和运营基础设施 旨在清除树木，建立更“发达”的形式， 活动 另一种形式的行动是一个有点特别的过程， 当个人资源有限的人遵循道路时就会发生- 建筑工人进入新的领域，并清除附近的小包裹 道路 对这一理论的检验将通过分析 两个现存的数据库，提供有关森林砍伐的信息， 不同国家的数量。 一个数据库是由食品 1980年和1990年， 森林砍伐量的数字估计。 第二数据库 包括基于以下方面的具体国家森林砍伐情况说明： 粮农组织和国际自然资源保护联盟编写的报告 自然和其他科学研究。 理论上相关 这些数据库中的变量将被组装成真值表， 这些表将通过使用布尔代数来简化。 随后的分析应该提供更直接的因果关系的见解 不同变量之间的联系，从而提高我们对 增长联盟和个体行动者清除 森林 这个项目将有助于我们了解 热带森林砍伐通过一些不同的方式。 它将 开发和测试新的理论模型， 砍伐森林。 经验数据的收集和分析将提供 这些新模型的有价值的测试，数据将变得可用 供研究者用于其他相关研究。 该项目还 将使一些相对较新的分析程序， 以确定其有效性和局限性，用于评估 定量和定性信息。

The clearance of tropical forests has been cited as one of the major factors contributing to the loss of biological diversity and to changes in atmospheric chemistry that may ultimately lead to global warming. While human activities have been identified as major causes of tropical deforestation, relatively little attention has been focused on the processes by which individuals and groups of people (whether functioning together informally or in more formal organizational units) actually make decisions that result in forest clearance. This project will develop and test a theory that identifies two forms of human action as means through which people act to remove tropical forests. One form of action is through the development of "growth coalitions" that act in a relatively coordinated manner to establish and operate an infrastructure aimed at removing trees and establishing more "developed" forms of activity. The other form of action is a somewhat ad hoc process that occurs when individuals with limited personal resources follow road- construction crews into new areas and clear small parcels near the roads. This tests of this theory will be undertaken through analyses of two extant databases that provide information about deforestation in a number of different countries. One database was gathered by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 1980 and 1990 in order to provide numerical estimates of amounts of deforestation. The second database consists of country-specific descriptions of deforestation based on reports prepared by FAO and the International Union on the Conservation of Nature and on other scientific studies. Theoretically relevant variables from these databases will be assembled into truth tables and the tables will be simplified through the use of Boolean algebra. Subsequent analyses should provide more direct insights into the causal links among different variables, thereby improving our understandings of the processes by which growth coalitions and individual actors clear forests. This project will make contributions to our understandings of tropical deforestation through a number of different means. It will develop and test new theoretical models about the processes of deforestation. Assembly and analysis of empirical data will provide valuable tests of these new models, and the data will become available for use by investigators for other related studies. The project also will enable some relatively new analytic procedures to be assessed in order to determine their efficacy and limitations for use in evaluating both quantitative and qualitative information.