Explaining the Causes of Deforestation with the Hyde Model (A Conceptual Framework)
Abstract
Using the Hyde Model of forest land use change and tools of systems analysis, this paper builds a conceptual framework to analyze causes of deforestation. It identifies demand for forest land and resources as the underlying driver of deliberate deforestation. It distinguishes between determinants of demand for forest land/resources and direct causes of deforestation. Demand is an indirect cause which can only lead to deforestation through its effect on other factors (direct causes). The process of deforestation is complex/the outcome of the interplay of different causative factors in which one or a few dominate. The determinants of deforestation are not static as the combinations of factors that cause deforestation change over time and space.