Revenue or Legitimacy? Rebel Governance and Forest Extraction in the Philippines

Abstract

Tropical forests are disappearing at alarming rates. Nearly 40 percent of what is left lies in regions affected by violent conflict, yet armed groups' role in forest loss remains poorly understood. We argue that rebels face a tradeoff between extracting resources from the forest and protecting it as a form of rebel governance. They can profit by shielding illegal logging, but the marginalized populations they rely on for support are often the most harmed, as deforestation erodes livelihoods, degrades ancestral lands, and exacerbates environmental hazards. Using a difference-in-differences design in the Philippines pairing village-level intelligence reports on rebel presence with satellite imagery on forest cover, we find support for this view. Rebels drive deforestation, but only in areas without Indigenous communities and far from recent landslides. For rebels, protecting the forest is profit deliberately left on the table, a price they pay only where civilians have the most to lose.