The effect of forest access on the market for fuelwood in India

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Boskovic, Branko; Chakravorty, Ujjayant; Pelli, Martino; Risch, Anna
• 署名单位: Tufts University; University of Sherbrooke; INRAE; Communaute Universite Grenoble Alpes; Universite Grenoble Alpes (UGA); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102956
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Energy access; Cooking fuels; deforestation; Forest cover; Fuelwood collection

摘要

Fuelwood collection by poor people is often cited as the most important cause of deforestation in developing countries. Using household survey data from India, we show that households located farther away from the forest spend more time in fuelwood collection. These households are likely to sell more fuelwood and buy less. That is, reduced access to forests increases fuelwood collection and sale. This counter-intuitive behavior is triggered by the higher fixed costs of households living farther from the forest arising from larger travel times. By combining two different datasets, we can quantify net fuelwood sales out of a village. We show that a fifth of the fuelwood collected is consumed outside of rural areas, in nearby towns and cities. Our estimates suggest that fuelwood burning may account for roughly 14%-20% of the typical daily PM2.5 load in a city like New Delhi.