Optimal Foraging, Institutions and Forest Change: A Case from Nepal

The forest composition we witness today is a productof temporal anthropogenic and nonanthropogenicdisturbances. Scholars from geography, anthropology,and other disciplines have long been aware of theinforming nature of spatial relationships: humanactions in a previous time often leave imprints intoday's landscape. Traditional empirical studies offorest condition typically ignore this type ofinformation and rely on aggregated forest-levelindicators developed from aspatial plot-levelanalyses. This paper conducts a spatial analysis ofone important forest product species, Shorearobusta, in a foraging setting in southern Nepal. Forest plot locations were located using DifferentialGlobal Positioning Systems (DGPS) and were processedusing a Geographic Information System. Three rivalhypotheses of the geographic distribution of Shorea robusta are presented: (1) a pattern of nohuman disturbance, (2) a pattern of open access andoptimal foraging, and (3) a pattern of optimalforaging altered by the geographic configuration ofenforced institutions. Multivariate regression modelsare estimated and optimal foraging patterns areidentified. Statistical tests lend support to thethird hypothesis. Methods such as the ones presentedhere are important if we are to better understand thegeographic implications of institutional design onhuman behavior and the environmental outcomes that result.