World Bank

In the past decade, there has been a profound increase in the world's understanding of and concern about the forest sector of the developing world. A wide range of analyses and policy research has shed light on the determinants of the effective demand for land and wood (the cause of deforestation), the importance of tenure arrangements, and the links between government policies and the forest sector. The use of government policies to influence behavior in the sector is a principal theme of this paper which is organized as follows.