This paper shows how the world’s appetite for spices has led to extensive deforestation in a national park. Field study was undertaken in the Kerinci-Seblat National Park, the Province of Jambi, Indonesia in mid-1990s, where massive encroachment into the park was caused by land-clearing for cinnamon planting.

The dynamic of international cinnamon market, as represented by export price, is shown to have strong influence on the size of cinnamon planting areas, and hence deforestation, in the district where the study was undertaken. The good performance of the ARMA (1,1) model indicates that there exist strong internal forces that govern the stochastic process of cinnamon planting areas. The results also indicate that national conservation programs implemented for more than a decade have been somehow ineffective in halting deforestation in the district studied. This problem is caused by government failure such as, firstly, over-lapping spatial planning resulting from poor inter-ministerial coordination, lack of competence and corruption; secondly, ineffective detection procedures due to poor staffing and inadequate equipment; and finally, failure to ensure that the benefits of forest conservation go mostly to individuals directly involved in forest clearing and/or whose livelihood is dependent on land cleared from a forest. This paper also discusses the case where road development provides “official legalization” for previous forest clearing.

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