WHEN DO PROPERTY-RIGHTS MATTER - OPEN ACCESS, INFORMAL SOCIAL CONTROLS, AND DEFORESTATION IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON

In recent years a number of analysts have argued that open access expl ains why people have destroyed so many tropical forests so rapidly. Un der conditions of open access loggers and colonists clear forested lan d rapidly out of a fear that others will extract valuable resources fr om these places before they will. This paper questions the magnitude o f the 'open access' effect. Ethnographic data from the Ecuadorian Amaz on suggest that, in the absence of formally constituted property right s, informal social controls limit access to the forests and indirectly limit rates of tropical deforestation. Comparisons with land clearing in the Brazilian Amazon suggest that informal controls only retard de forestation in relatively stable frontier settings. The paper conclude s with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings.