| There is an important question regarding how tourism affects forest cover in protected areas. Some studies find that tourism, by increasing demand for infrastructure to cater to tourists, leads to forest loss, while other work suggests that tourism can, conversely, lead to forest recovery, as illegal logging may be discouraged by more eyes on the ground, or ecotourism economy lends greater value to a standing forest. To test these alternative hypotheses, this study utilizes remote sensing coupled with statistical analysis to compare deforestation at the local level in and around protected areas in Colombia, a country with vast forests that is transitioning away from a long-term armed conflict and is seeing a rapid increase in its tourism rates. The study assesses the impact of tourism on forest loss by drawing together a novel collection of data. I utilize data reported by Hanson, et al. (2013) detailing forest loss at a 30-meter resolution globally between 2000 and 2014 to identify sites within and near protected areas in Colombia that have been deforested between 2008 and 2011. I combine these data with data on tourist arrivals, which I use as an indicator of tourism intensity, in addition to geographic data on proximity to trails, roads, and rivers, all possible modes of transportation for cut timber. Finally, I study the relationship between past deforestation events and current levels of tourist activity to investigate the potential for ecotourism to support post-conflict sustainable development. I take a random sample of one million points inside and within 20 kilometers of the border of all protected areas in Colombia, using Firth penalized likelihood logistic regression models to predict incidences of forest loss between 2008 and 2011. My findings have implications for priority setting for conservation and promotion of ecotourism development in post-conflict tropical forest areas. |
