Date of Award

4-29-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Business Admin.

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Binish Rijal

Abstract

This paper seeks to determine whether the CITES trade restrictions on rosewood have been effective. Effectiveness will be measured by the amount of illegal logging the restrictions reduce. The Matt Hansen Global Deforestation dataset, which measures deforestation from year to year, will be analyzed in the Google Earth Engine Code Editor to determine the yearly amount of deforestation in Madagascar. This output will then be loaded into R and assessed using OLS estimation techniques to determine whether the ban had a significant impact on the amount of illegal logging occurring in Madagascar. Because CITES restrictions are lifted and restored with varying degrees of severity, the analysis of this paper will focus on the most recent sanctions. These restrictions have been active for Madagascar species of rosewood since 2013 and for all other rosewood species since 2017. This period will be the focus of analysis because it has been the most consistently applied restriction era to date with all species within the genus of Dalbergia being categorized under appendix II (aside from the already more heavily regulated Brazilian Rosewood). The analysis suggests that the CITES restrictions increased the amount of rosewood harvested in Madagascar during the period observed.

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