Electoral Competition and Deforestation: Evidence from Kenya

After Kenya introduced multi-party democracy in 1992, deforestation in the closed canopy forests of Kenya intensified. Anecdotal evidence suggests a link between the two phenomena. Under the constitution, closed canopy forests in the forest reserves are classified as government property and may have become an accessible source to dish-out in return for political favors. This research aims at investigating empirically the causal effect of the rise in political competition on deforestation. In particular did the forest become a resource for vote-buying? This research will exploit the introduction of democracy as a quasi-natural experiment whereby pre and post 1992 the same leader (Moi) is in power and laws governing forest reserves remain unchanged. A panel data set of forest cover at the constituency-year level will be created by using remote sensing and GIS on Landsat satellite images from 1972-2002.