1 Household and Argan Forest Impacts of Morocco’s Argan Oil Bonanza* Travis J. Lybbert (contact author) / Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics / UC Davis / One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616 / tlybbert@ucdavis.edu Nicholas Magnan, Ph.D. Candidate, Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Davis Abdellah Aboudrare, Researcher, École Nationale d’Agriculture – Meknès, Morocco March 2010 ABSTRACT Morocco’s argan oil is now the most expensive edible oil in the world. Growing high value argan markets have sparked a bonanza of argan activity. NGOs, international and domestic development agencies, and argan oil cooperatives have promoted the win-win aim of simultaneously benefiting locals and the argan forest. We test this win-win claim by surveying households before and after rapid appreciation in argan prices. The argan boom has benefited some rural households. Those well positioned to benefit increased their goat herds more than other households, which bodes poorly for forest impacts, and were more likely to send their girls to secondary school. While locals are keeping their goats out of argan trees during the harvest, they may also be resorting to more aggressive harvesting techniques. The boom has made households vigilant guardians of fruit on their own trees, but has not incited investments in longer term tree and forest health. Keywords: Argan oil; Conservation; Benefit sharing; Bioprospecting; Morocco; Non-timber forest products * The first two authors share seniority of authorship. We are grateful for the assistance and kindness of the people of the Smimou region, including the many local officials who facilitated this research. The 2007 enumerating team – Ijja El Bouskraoui, Rachid Moussaid, Mohammed El Moumen, and Fatima Ait-Dhar – did an exceptional job. This built on the excellent work of our 1999 enumerators, Bahija Habib and Youssef Laaraj. We thank the Aboudrare family for their hospitality, insights and help. We also thank the representatives and staff of the Essaouira Province and the Ministry of Agriculture for their cooperation and suggestions. Steve Vosti and UC Davis Development Workshop attendees offered helpful suggestions related to the empirical analysis. Attendees of the Pacific Development Conference and seminars at IUCN and Université de Provence also provided valuable insights.