Analyzing the perception of deforestation drivers by African policy makers in light of possible REDD+ policy responses

As REDD+ countries are moving towards the implementation phase of their national REDD+ programs, it becomes crucial to better understand what drives deforestation in order to identify policy responses. This however, remains challenging because, while the number of scientific assessments of deforestation drivers is increasing, they often reach diverging conclusions. Deforestation drivers can have long underlying causal chains and take different shapes depending on the perspective that is chosen. As states are the official owners of forests in most African countries, analyzing the perspective of policy makers on deforestation in this context, helps revealing deforestation drivers that are harder to quantify, define and measure with usual proxies. It also potentially allows identifying politically and institutionally feasible deforestation reduction measures.