Nongovernmental Organizations and Protected Land Area A Cross-National Analysis

In this study, we seek to determine what factors help shape protected land area in poor nations. We use lagged dependent variable panel regression for a sample of ninety poor nations to test hypotheses from counter-coalition theory and green-imperialism theory. We find substantial support for countercoalition theory that nations with protected areas should increase in poor nations that have high rates deforestation and still contain large tracts of forests. We initially find no support for the green-imperialism hypothesis that nongovernmental organizations are significantly related to protected land area. However, we respecify our original models in order to test the idea that democratic nations provide a "political opportunity structure" that improves the ability of nongovernmental organizations to protect land area. We find substantial support for this hypothesis. The results indicate that nongovernmental organizations are associated with more protected land area in nations with democratic rather than repressive nations.