Changing role in government

As countries started to adopt open-market policies to boost economy, state policies changed directions by doing away with colonisation. Rudel (2007) stated that in Asia, the factor that played a major role in contributing to deforestation had changed from government policies and logging activities in the 1980s to plantations in the 1990s. However, even without state forces contribution to deforestation, the situation of deforestation did not improve because of private companies and corporations at work (FAO, 2001). As government played a less role of deforestation, landowners emerged to play the major role. For profitable reasons in the free-market society, large landowners seek to expand by building more and better network of roads and hence, contributed to deforestation (Molotch, 1976; Rudel and Horowitz, 1993). While forests come under the ownership of private enterprises, it becomes more challenging to stop deforestation as government may lack the authority to control actions on private land.