ABSTRACT
Tropical nations are on average, smaller and younger than extratropical nations. The map lines that delimited the territory of nations in the aftermath of empire did more than allocate land area to the new cohort of emerging nations. One undeniable outcome of colonialism is the relative nascence of self-governance in most tropical nations. An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development nation on average had an eight-fold larger economy in 2010 than a tropical country with a similarly sized population. Analyzing data compiled by the Center for Systemic Peace on major episodes of political violence shows that tropical forest nations have suffered some form of major conflict more frequently and for longer periods than extra-tropical nations. The ultimate outcome is the loss of an important local industry that provides a critical source of income to some of the poorest rural households and an increase in violence associated with illegal elements in the trade.
