Defend women’s rights and save the trees: a cross-national analysis of women’s immovable property rights and forest loss

Since 1990, 420 million hectares of forest have disappeared worldwide with the majority being lost in low- and middle-income nations. Given this alarming trend, what can be done to safeguard such a vital resource? Drawing on feminist political ecology, we suggest that protecting women’s legal rights to immovable property might help alleviate the problem of forest loss in low- and middle-income nations. Building on existing theoretical and case study work, we use ordinary least squares and two-stage instrumental variable regression models to examine the association between women’s immovable property rights in 2000 and forest loss from 2001 to 2015 across 65 low- and middle-income nations. The results suggest that higher levels of women’s property rights are associated with lower forest loss, net of various controls. This finding implies that when the rights of women are curtailed, the repercussions extend beyond women themselves. Indeed, the repercussions are felt throughout all of society, including on the natural environment.