This research mainly examines the influence of democracy on forest protection by employing an estimation of generalized method of moments (GMM) and data on 111 countries during the period 1991–2018. The empirical results suggest that democracies tend to do better at forest protection, which is supported when we conduct several robustness tests. If the regimes transform from lower democratic to higher democratic, then this is also beneficial for forest protection. Although liberal democracy, electoral democracy, participatory democracy, and deliberative democracy promote forest protection, egalitarian democracy does not bring about the forest protection. Additionally, better control of corruption strengthens the positive effect of democracy on forest protection, while the utilization of renewable energy, trade globalization, and business freedom weaken it. Finally, parliamentary democracies and majoritarian democracies are more likely to protect forests than presidential democracies or proportional democracies.

本研究主要采用广义矩量法 (GMM) 估计和 1991-2018 年期间 111 个国家的数据来检验民主对森林保护的影响。实证结果表明，民主国家往往在森林保护方面做得更好，这在我们进行多项稳健性检验时得到了支持。如果政权从低级民主转变为高级民主，那么这也有利于森林保护。尽管自由民主、选举民主、参与民主和协商民主促进了森林保护，但平等民主并没有带来森林保护。此外，更好地控制腐败加强了民主对森林保护的积极影响，而可再生能源的利用、贸易全球化、商业自由削弱了它。最后，议会民主制和多数民主制比总统制民主制或比例民主制更有可能保护森林。