Yuexuan (Kelly) Wu presented ongoing research on the impact of a deforestation moratorium in Indonesia. Since 2000, Indonesia has seen a 17% reduction in forest cover. Much of the forest loss can be attributed to fires that are used to permanently clear land for agriculture. If the moratorium is effective, we should expect that land-clearing fire activity decreases in areas impacted by the moratorium relative to areas that are not impacted by the moratorium.

Frederik Strabo presented preliminary work modeling how competition between adjacent landowners can shape their incentives to invest in forest fire prevention. The combination of historical land use practices and climate change have greatly increased the risk and severity of forest fires. Landowners can mitigate these risks by investing in costly interventions like forest thinning. They can also adjust to these risks by changing when (and if) they harvest the trees in their forests.