Reading 9 Flashcards
Viña and colleagues (2016) find that this reforestation program has been quite
successful, increasing
forest cover in China by 1.6 percent (or 157,315 square kilometers). For
scale, this corresponds to an area slightly larger than the state of Georgia
2016). Initially, to support economic growth as well as changing
consumption patterns, China did what and what did this decision cause
utilized its own vast natural resources and land (Mol). 2011). However,
this decision created extensive environmental problems including increased forest loss,
biodiversity loss and endangerment of species, soil erosion, air pollution, and water scarcity (Karl,
Thus, China’s conservation policy may be exacerbating
forest degradation in other regions” like exporting the problem- like we discussed in prev lecs
Despite the apparent connection between domestic conservation efforts and resulting
displacement of environmental harms to other countries, we are not aware of
any cross-national
research that that actually tests this contention, which leaves a rather large gap in the empirical
literature.
2019). In spite of the theoretical
developments and growing body of empirical research that are pertinent to the case of China, there
remains a scarcity of
of research on this particular question.
On the one hand, using a multi-region input-output model for a sample
of 186 nations, scholars such as Feng and Hubacek (2014) found that China has been able to offset
a portion of its carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions by importing natural resources and
agricultural products from low- and middle-income nations
Environmental harms may be avoided because Chinese companies and banks
have been participating in
voluntary codes of conduct designed to lessen their environmental
impacts, and Chinese investments and other economic activities have been under scrutiny by non-
governmental organizations and social movements to improve their environmental performance
Drawing on the theory of ecologically unequal exchange, we anticipate that China’s reliance
on exporting nations to reduce its own domestic environmental harms, does what
while also not producing
harms in those very same exporting nations, may amount to a sleight of hand.
hand. Thus, as the starting
point for our study, we draw on the theory of
of ecologically unequal exchange and the existing but
contested empirical research on the topic.
hand. Thus, as the starting
point for our study, we draw on the theory of
of ecologically unequal exchange and the existing but
contested empirical research on the topic.
The theory of unequal ecological exchange is an extension of
of various political-economic
theories that suggest that high-income nations are advantageously situated within the global
economy and are more likely to secure favorable terms of trade
Put differently, high-income nations
are able to shift
many of the negative environmental externalities associated with their natural
resource demands onto low- and middle-income nations
1967). This is the result of several factors that drive down the price of natural resources including
…
competition among the number of nations exporting similar products, subsidies by governments
in high-income nations who also produce similar goods, and an abundant supply of cheap labor to
produce the goods in low- and middle-income nations (Hornborg
For example, the World Bank’s investment loans often
finance … (Rich) High-income nations also finance similar projects via their …
- infrastructure projects that are meant to facilitate bringing exports to market
- export credit agencies
At the same time, the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment lending requires
requires highly
indebted low- and middle-income nations to adopt certain macro-economic policy reforms meant
to boost natural resource exports, including economic incentives (e.g., tax holidays) and regulatory
concessions (e.g., environmental law exemptions) for foreign investors (Shandra, Rademacher,
and Coburn 2016).
In such instances, multinational corporations are able to
extract economic incentives and
regulatory concessions from a host nation by relocating or threatening to relocate their facilities to
another low- or middle-income nation (Frey 2012).
In such instances, multinational corporations are able to
extract economic incentives and
regulatory concessions from a host nation by relocating or threatening to relocate their facilities to
another low- or middle-income nation (Frey 2012).
The authors then compare scores across nations at different income
levels to conclude that
high-income nations externalize various environmental problems onto low-
income nations via imports from these nations.
The authors
go on to demonstrate that higher levels of exports sent from low- and middle-income nations to
high-income nations are related to worse
ecological footprint scores across low- and middle-
income nations. Rice (2007) also examined the ecological footprint of nations and demonstrates
that the impact of exports to high-income nations are especially detrimental in low-income nations.
loss. Noble (2017) demonstrates that higher levels of
chocolate export flows from low- and middle-income to high-income nations also correspond with
increased forest loss in the exporting nations. The findings from this wide-ranging body of
empirical research consistently show that
exports to high-income nations are associated with
environmental harms.
While this body of research yields fairly conclusive results, less is known
about the role that rapidly industrializing
middle-income nations like China play in the process of
ecologically unequal exchange, despite recent calls for social scientists to better understand the
issue (Frame
what is unclear about chinas trade practices and what do we seek to do
It is unclear whether
their trade practices displace harms onto poorer nations or if China has been successful inestablishing more balanced and less ecological destructive trade relations. As such, we seek apply
the theory of ecologically unequal exchange to China and contribute to the nascent and contested
research that exists on the topic.
China’s new focus was well timed, as it was positioned to
ake advantage of investments
opportunities abroad that opened up as a result of the International Monetary Fund requiring low-
and middle-income nations to privatize many government functions as part of structural
adjustment lending during the 1990s
The Chinese government also
provided what to its overseas companies and give examples
by the central government (Smaller, Wei, and Yalan 2012). China also tends to limit 2
- inancial incentives and regulatory concessions to its companies (Bräutigam and
Xiaoyang 2009). The financial incentives include tax holidays, regulatory concessions, and the
elimination of administrative requirements that companies receive permission to invest overseas - monitoring,
enforcement, and prosecution of exports known to have been logged or harvested illegally
2016). Because of the limited financial ties to the Chinese
government and banks, Kittilaksanawong and Dai (2016) argue that …1 Second,
large Chinese companies are now directly acquiring forest concessions and setting up pulp and
saw mills to process logs for export to China as paper and wood (Li and Yan 2016). These
investments allow China to 2
- small and medium sized
enterprises are less likely to comply with voluntary guidelines related to conservation.
2play a larger role in the management of a low- or middle-income
nation’s forests (Li and Yan 2016).
The factors discussed above are the ways that China has been able to
reduce domestic
environmental problems by developing and relying more on increased forestry exports from other
low- and middle-income nations. This would lead us to expect that exporting nations would absorb
the environmental harms displaced onto them. However, the limited research applying ecologically
unequal exchange to China has yielded contradictory results.
Second, China has attempted to respond to criticism related to
he environmental performance
of its investments abroad and be more proactive about warding off such criticisms
Third, China has been more willing to work with the World Bank and United Nations to
integrate their regulations on
governance and transparency into its investments (Mol 2011). In this
regard, China’s Export-Import Bank signed an agreement to ensure that its investments in forestry
in Sub-Saharan Africa meet the World Bank’s and International Finance Corporation’s
environmental standards (Mol 2011). At the same time, the China-Africa Development Fund has
committed to meet the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines that
include environmental standards (Mol 2011).
The author finds
that in the 1990s, rosewood imports in China were correlated with
increased forest loss in Vietnam,
Myanmar, and Cambodia during the 1990s. As rosewood supplies dwindled among these nations
at the turn of the century and prices rose, imports from Sub-Saharan Africa began to increase, as
did forest loss in the region (Tranor 2015).
A similar study by Yin (2018) found that China’s
demand for wood from the Solomon Islands increased forest loss. In this instance, China facilitated
exports by supporting “industrialization” such as financing the building of roads that are primarily
used to gain access to forests in remote regions, which in turn increased forest loss (Yin 2018).
The World Wildlife Fund (2018) estimates that Asia Pulp and Paper’s
and Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited’s mills do not have access to enough
forest concessions to keep running at capacity.
Thus, forest loss is anticipated to increase with
suppliers clearing natural forests illegally to meet demand. Despite the regulatory framework in
place, we argue that the pressure of consumptive demand fulfilled in the structure of unequal
exchange will be the determinative factor for forests.
Having reviewed the ways that China may be facilitating ecologically unequal exchange in
low- and middle-income nations, and despite the initial contradictory evidence regarding whether
this is occurring, from this discussion we turn to empirically addressing this important lacuna in
the cross-national literature:
Are higher levels of forestry exports from low- and middle-income
nations to China related to increased forest loss in the exporting nations?
We analyze the data using
ordinary least squares regression (OLS) in Stata 14.2
Before the use of OLS (the stat thing they are using), we must ensure that
we are not violating any regression assumptions.
First, we calculate mean and highest variance inflation factor (VIF) scores for each model, which
we report in Table 2. There does not appear to be any potential problems with multicollinearity
because the mean and highest VIF scores do not exceed the conservative threshold value of 2.5
(Tabachnick and Fidel 2013).
1977). Thus, if the chi-square test coefficient is statistically significant, then we reject the null
hypothesis and conclude that
the specified transformation does a worse job at approximating
normality than the variable in its original form.
We removed these nations from the analysis and report results based on their exclusion. We
also examined Cook’s distance statistics to detect influential cases. The results indicate
no
potential problems with influential cases among the remaining nations included in the sample.
The sample includes what countries
75 low- and middle-income nations as classified by the World Bank
Our dependent variable is forest loss. Until recently, cross-national research on forest loss
was largely based upon data made available in
the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture
Organization’s Global Forest Resources Assessment. However, the reliability of the data has been called into question because they are gathered
utilizing data collection methods that vary from nation to nation (Grainger 2008).
We calculate forest loss in the following way.
First, we set the minimum tree cover canopy
density level upon which to base the estimates. Second, we obtain the amount of nation’s land area in hectares with the
corresponding minimum tree cover canopy density. Third, we obtain the number of hectares of forests cleared from 2001 to 2014 in the
preceding area. Fourth, we divide the total amount of hectares cleared by the total forest size to
compute the rate of forest loss over this time period (Rudel, 2017). We take the natural log of the
forest loss rate because it is skewed.
As noted above, we use the theory of ecologically unequal exchange to inform this study.
Our
main independent variable is a nation’s forestry exports to China. From this, we then draw upon
Shandra (2007) to guide our choice of other independent variable to include in the models. See
Shandra (2007) for a discussion of how each independent variable is related to a given theory of
forest loss (World Bank 2016). Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for all variables in
our analysis are provided in the appendix (Table A1).
Forestry Exports to China. This variable measures a nation’s forestry exports sent to China
as
a percentage of a nation’s total forestry exports.
Forestry Exports to China. This variable measures a nation’s forestry exports sent to China
as
a percentage of a nation’s total forestry exports.
It is also necessary to control for a country’s total forestry exports in
order to determine whether it is the flow of exports to a given nation or overall exports that may
be contributing to forest loss (Shandra, Leckband, and London 2009). Thus, we include
total
forestry exports as a percentage of total exports of goods and services. The forestry export data
come from the Food and Agriculture Organization (2017).
We expect higher levels of forestry
exports to correspond with
more forest loss.
We expect that nations with a larger forestry sector should have higher levels of
forest loss
as extraction of these natural resources are central to their economies.
Forest Proximity to Infrastructure. This variable is
the percentage of a country’s total forests
that are located within 10 kilometers of infrastructure including roads, highways, rivers, and ports.
Rudel (1989) argues that geometric growth
in population outstrips arithmetic growth in the means of
subsistence, leading a growing
population to clear forests to grow crops.
We use Vanhanen’s (2014) measure of democracy, which is calculated by
taking
the average of his political competition index with his political participation index.
In the judicial sector, corruption involves judges and their agents receiving
undocumented extra payments or bribes from an individual or company to speed up, delay, or
obtain a favorable decision (Sommer 2017). We hypothesize that
higher levels of corruption
should be related to increased forest loss. This is because corruption across sectors diverts
government funds away from investment in conservation (Koyuncu and Yilmaz 2009). It also
allows illegal logging and other violations of a country’s forestry laws to go unenforced with little
fear of punishment (Sommer 2017).
