Speaker
Description
Abstract
We analyze the impact of recently constructed, large-scale road infrastructure
on local forest loss and economic development in the Republic of the Congo
(RoC) between 2000 and 2020. Situated in Western Central Africa, the RoC
is home to a humid tropical forest that serves as the world’s only stable car-
bon sink, absorbing 1.5% of global annual carbon emissions. In recent years,
the government has sought to diversify an economy strongly dependent on
oil exports and defined by limited industrialization. A key component of
this strategy has been the construction of modern road infrastructure, which
has been historically inadequate. To answer our question, we employ Call-
away and Sant’Anna’s differences-in-differences estimator and combine data
on roads with remote sensing data of forest cover (capturing deforestation),
cropland (capturing agricultural expansion), nighttime lights and physical
built-up area (capturing market development and urbanization). We provide
evidence of trade-offs between local economic development and the environ-
mental costs of road infrastructure investments, observing notable differences
across various parts of the country. Overall, our data indicate that the con-
struction of new roads leads to significant forest cover loss in most areas
within a 10km corridor around these roads, with the effects becoming more
pronounced in later observation periods. In the most developed part of the
country, the south, road infrastructure is related to the expansion of markets,
agriculture, and urbanization. In the economically less developed center and
north, there is some evidence of agricultural development but little to no
evidence of urbanization. However, we do find evidence of market develop-
ment in the north and that this seems to be connected to the systematic
exploitation of forest resources.
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