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Who is responsible for deforestation in the Amazon? A spatially explicit analysis along the Transamazon Highway in Brazil
... The tension evident between the socio-economic benefits of oil sector infrastructure expansion and forest conservation is well understood with several empirical studies (Baynard et al., 2013;Finer et al., 2008;Wunder, 2003) indicating that a negative and detrimental relationship exists between oil development activities, infrastructure expansion (roads, refinery, and pipelines) and accelerated deforestation as well as overall environmental deterioration (Baynard et al., 2013;Godar et al., 2012). This is especially so as such large-scale infrastructure expansion within a forested landscape 19 A national program aimed at enhancing oil roads infrastructure in Hoima District and other districts as part of the overall oil sector development program. ...
... Several studies show that oil exploration and production (E&P) activities in remote forested landscapes can serve as major catalysts for landscape change characterized by the replacement of forests with alternative land-uses typically agriculture, road infrastructure or settlements (Baynard et al., 2013;Godar et al., 2012;Wasserstrom & Southgate, 2013 (Acheampong et al., 2018;Baynard et al., 2013;Godar et al., 2012;Shombong, 2010;Wasserstrom & Southgate, 2013). ...
... Several studies show that oil exploration and production (E&P) activities in remote forested landscapes can serve as major catalysts for landscape change characterized by the replacement of forests with alternative land-uses typically agriculture, road infrastructure or settlements (Baynard et al., 2013;Godar et al., 2012;Wasserstrom & Southgate, 2013 (Acheampong et al., 2018;Baynard et al., 2013;Godar et al., 2012;Shombong, 2010;Wasserstrom & Southgate, 2013). ...
The development of oil resources in tropical countries is a significant driver of deforestation and its associated loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, empirical research on realizing sustainable forest management amidst the implementation of oil development policies in tropical countries of Sub-Saharan Africa is minimal. This dissertation is organized into three independent chapters. Together, these chapters analyze the policy options for enabling the co-existence of sustainable forest management amidst ongoing oil development activities within oil-rich countries of sub-Saharan Africa collectively. The study adopts a case study methodology of Hoima District in Uganda with an overall theoretical framework of the Forest Transition Theory (FTT). ☐ Chapter 2 of this study applies a Driver Pressure State Impact Response (DPSIR) framework within a single case study methodology to investigate the spatial and temporal deforestation outcomes following the implementation of Uganda’s commercial oil development policy in 2006 within Hoima District. We conclude that the implementation of Uganda’s oil development policy has resulted in significant and observable increases in annual rates of deforestation in Hoima District. Annual deforestation in Hoima District was declining at a rate of -1.9% per year in the period before commercial oil development started (2001-2006). However, this increased to 34% annual forest cover loss after the commencement of oil development (2007-219). We estimated that 202,813 forest hectares were lost between 2007 and 2019, potentially resulting in the loss of 18 tree species from Hoima District. Our study found that high population growth, the expansion, and intensification of subsistence agriculture because of commercial oil development maybe some of the significant deforestation drivers leading to accelerated forest cover loss in Hoima district. In Chapter 3 of this study, we apply the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework to synthesize 14 years of forest policy discourses in Uganda’s national print media (The Daily Monitor) during oil development in Hoima District. Our results in this Chapter seem to indicate that the top three drivers featured in Uganda’s print media discourse were forest policy failures (57%), infrastructure expansion (14%), agricultural development (8%), and co-joined drivers (8%). Our study also found that peripheral actors had a more robust media standing (52%) than center actors (48%) among the 18 distinct policy actors we identified. Specifically, the most predominant policy actors in shaping print-media discourses on deforestation and oil development were journalists (24%), National Forest Authority (NFA, 24%), and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs, 10%). Overall, our results seem to indicate that Uganda’s policy transition from a traditional paradigm of forest management based on cultural values to a modern paradigm based mainly on scientific forest management has not been beneficial to the sustainable forest management outcomes within the country. There is a clear need for a new forest policy paradigm that could complement modern paradigms of forest elements with beneficial values and other traditional paradigm elements. In Chapter 4, we undertook a comparative assessment of deforestation in three oil-rich countries of Sub-Saharan Africa of Uganda, Ghana, and Nigeria. This Chapter applies a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) framework through a multi-case study methodology. Our results show that agricultural expansion, increased wood extraction, and population growth drive most deforestation in oil-rich nations. However, the role of infrastructure expansion and forest policy failures were contested drivers of deforestation. Our study finds that the original FTT theory currently applied in most forest policy studies was inadequate as a research tool in assessing the totality of deforestation effects from oil development activities. This preceding observation was mostly so when we considered the long-term and cumulative impacts of deforestation, which are associated with the loss of intangible natural and cultural ecosystem services. Therefore, we proposed the Novel Forest Ecosystem Transition Theory (NFETT) theory, which integrates the loss of natural and cultural ecosystem services alongside forest cover loss within the various forest transitions. Addressing deforestation through the NFETT brings to light various policy options for ensuring the co-existence of oil development activities alongside sustainable forest management. To this end, we recommend that oil-rich countries should, among others; i) internalize costs of deforestation through Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) policies; ii) improve policy coordination to manage multicausal deforestation drivers; iii) population growth management policies; iv) policies for sustainable agriculture and woodfuel solutions; v) strengthen Sustainable Forest Management considerations in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) permitting processes and vi) improving environmental governance through the EITI process. These measures used in combination can go a long way in ensuring the successful co-existence of sustainable forest management during oil development in oil-rich countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.
... All Amazonian countries followed this trend, except for Brazil. Annual deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon decreased by 80% from 2005 to 2012, associated with lower participation of large and medium landholders (Godar et al. 2012) due to commodity price decreases and unfavorable currency exchange rates, policy interventions, and voluntary market agreements (Ricketts et al. 2010;Nepstad et al. 2014;Fearnside 2017a, b;West et al. 2019). Nevertheless, by 2019 the annual deforestation rate in Brazilian Amazonia had increased by 122% since the low point in 2012 (Brazil, INPE Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais 2020). ...
... When we analyze the size of areas deforested in the 20 settlements with the largest cumulative deforestation for the 2013-2018 period, only 15.8% of this area was in patches <10 ha in area. Clearings up to 10 ha are conservatively attributed to colonist families that were formally settled by the government (Wood et al. 2001;Godar et al. 2012). Clearings larger than 10 ha indicate the work of actors with resources that cannot be attributed to colonists. ...
... Studies have reported that isolation, lack of infrastructure and land titling, and poor implementation of public services lead to high lot turnover, with colonists illegally selling their farm lots to more-capitalized farmers (Fearnside 1989(Fearnside , 2001Ludewigs et al. 2009;Parry et al. 2010;Carrero and Fearnside 2011). This farm turnover has promoted land concentration in settlements in Pará (Fearnside 1986(Fearnside , 2001Pacheco 2009;Godar et al. 2012), Amazonas (Carrero and Fearnside 2011), Rondônia (Fearnside 1989), and Acre (Franco and Lima 2008;Ludewigs et al. 2009). Nevertheless, the questions of how land accumulation occurs and evolves over time and how it contributes to the local economy have not been well explored by scholars. ...
Available Free Online at: https://theconversation.com/the-great-amazon-land-grab-how-brazils-government-is-clearing-the-way-for-deforestation-173416
... All Amazonian countries followed this trend, except for Brazil. Annual deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon decreased by 80% from 2005 to 2012, associated with lower participation of large and medium landholders (Godar et al. 2012) due to commodity price decreases and unfavorable currency exchange rates, policy interventions, and voluntary market agreements (Ricketts et al. 2010;Nepstad et al. 2014;Fearnside 2017a, b;West et al. 2019). Nevertheless, by 2019 the annual deforestation rate in Brazilian Amazonia had increased by 122% since the low point in 2012 (Brazil, INPE Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais 2020). ...
... When we analyze the size of areas deforested in the 20 settlements with the largest cumulative deforestation for the 2013-2018 period, only 15.8% of this area was in patches <10 ha in area. Clearings up to 10 ha are conservatively attributed to colonist families that were formally settled by the government (Wood et al. 2001;Godar et al. 2012). Clearings larger than 10 ha indicate the work of actors with resources that cannot be attributed to colonists. ...
... Studies have reported that isolation, lack of infrastructure and land titling, and poor implementation of public services lead to high lot turnover, with colonists illegally selling their farm lots to more-capitalized farmers (Fearnside 1989(Fearnside , 2001Ludewigs et al. 2009;Parry et al. 2010;Carrero and Fearnside 2011). This farm turnover has promoted land concentration in settlements in Pará (Fearnside 1986(Fearnside , 2001Pacheco 2009;Godar et al. 2012), Amazonas (Carrero and Fearnside 2011), Rondônia (Fearnside 1989), and Acre (Franco and Lima 2008;Ludewigs et al. 2009). Nevertheless, the questions of how land accumulation occurs and evolves over time and how it contributes to the local economy have not been well explored by scholars. ...
We examine deforestation processes in Apuí, a deforestation hotspot in Brazil’s state of Amazonas and present processes of land-use change on this Amazonian development frontier. Settlement projects attract agents whose clearing reflects land accumulation and the economic importance of deforestation. We used a mixed-method approach in the Rio Juma Settlement to examine colonization and deforestation trajectories for 35 years at three scales of analysis: the entire landscape, cohorts of settlement lots divided by occupation periods, and lots grouped by landholding size per household. All sizes of landholdings are deforesting much more than before, and current political and economic forces favoring the agribusiness sector foreshadow increasing rates of forest clearing for pasture establishment in Apuí. The area cleared per year over the 2013–2018 period in Apuí grew by a percentage more than twice the corresponding percentage for the Brazilian Amazon as a whole. With the national congress and presidential administration signaling impunity for illegal deforestation, wealthy actors, and groups are investing resources in land grabbing and land accumulation, with land speculation being a crucial deforestation factor. This paper is unique in providing causal explanations at the decision-maker’s level on how deforestation trajectories are linked to economic and political events (period effects) at the larger scales, adding to the literature by showing that such effects were more important than aging and cohort effects as explanations for deforestation trajectories. Additional research is needed to deepen our understanding of relations between land speculation, illegal possession of public lands, and the expansion of agricultural frontiers in Amazonia.
... Many such studies have been conducted in the Amazon (e.g. Aldrich et al. 2009;Brondízio et al. 2009;Browder, Pedlowski, and Summers 2004;Godar, Tizado, and Pokorny 2012), Panama (Nelson, Harris, and Stone 2001), and Vietnam (Clement and Amezaga 2008;Muller and Zeller 2002), just to name a few. ...
... Therefore, they may also offer the greatest potential to both halt deforestation and promote reforestation (Javier Godar, Tizado, and Pokorny 2012). Such farms may also play an important role in more sustainable regional development (Pokorny et al. 2013). ...
... Whatever its form, this deforestation was not evenly distributed across the landscape: Alger and Caldas (1994) found that while the smallest farmers controlled very little forest, their contribution to deforestation post-crisis was proportionally greater (i.e. the smallest farmers controlled 2% of forest but contributed 4% of the total deforestation) (Alger and Caldas 1994). These findings are consistent with research from the Brazilian Amazon that found that small landholders are more likely to deforest (Javier Godar, Tizado, and Pokorny 2012). This greater contribution of smallholders to deforestation foreshadowed the Brazil-wide trend in the 2000's and 2010's (J. ...
Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) studies emphasize the importance of identifying the local and regional drivers of deforestation. This study, based on a cross-sectional survey of over 2,000 small farms and their owners in the Atlantic Rainforest near Ilhéus, Brazil, contributes to the LULCC literature by identifying farmer- and farm-level characteristics associated with both the likelihood of having forest and the proportion of forest on a property. After controlling for several covariates, we find that farm size, owners’ level of education, cattle herd size, and migration status are all significantly associated with whether a farm has forest and how much forest cover exists on the farm. These results suggest that demographic change, farmer capabilities, and economic development are all potential drivers of LULCC. We then discuss these findings in the context of the region’s developmental trajectory and contemporary farmers’ perspectives to hypothesize the socioeconomic conditions that would be conducive to reforestation and limit future deforestation. We conclude that such an outcome depends on inclusive investments in human capital, innovation, and agroforestry.
... The government could also develop financial and tax policies as incentives for economic agents who already comply with current legislation, stimulating others to start complying. Activities that do not have risk of deforestation could be stimulated, thereby combining economic alternatives with the preservation of environment (CHOMITZ, 2004;GODAR;TIZADO;POKORNY, 2012;HUMPHRIES et al., 2012). ...
... The government could also develop financial and tax policies as incentives for economic agents who already comply with current legislation, stimulating others to start complying. Activities that do not have risk of deforestation could be stimulated, thereby combining economic alternatives with the preservation of environment (CHOMITZ, 2004;GODAR;TIZADO;POKORNY, 2012;HUMPHRIES et al., 2012). ...
... The government could also develop financial and tax policies as incentives for economic agents who already comply with current legislation, stimulating others to start complying. Activities that do not have risk of deforestation could be stimulated, thereby combining economic alternatives with the preservation of environment (CHOMITZ, 2004;GODAR;TIZADO;POKORNY, 2012;HUMPHRIES et al., 2012). ...
... Além do exposto, Perz (2003) identificou também que domicílios que se encontram mais distantes dos centros urbanos e que possuem piores condições de acesso têm maior superfície contínua de mata intacta, menor área destinada à agricultura comercial e maior chance de adotar técnicas extensivas de manejo Godar et al. (2012) aponta que o desmatamento na Amazônia é particularmente severo ao longo das principais estradas de penetração entre as quais a Rodovia Transamazônica (BR-230) é um exemplo emblemático. A agricultura familiar que antes era tida como principal causadora do desmatamento ao longo da rodovia, após anos de pressão econômica e demográfica, teve sua importância diminuída pelo acúmulo de terra em grandes latifúndios destinados à produção bovina, aumentando os distúrbios causados na região (GODAR et al., 2012); por isso, ao buscarem identificar os fatores que explicam o desmatamento a partir da caracterização dos diferentes perfis de produtores colocam capital, tamanho do lote, distância de mercados e força de trabalho como merecedores de destaque. ...
... Além do exposto, Perz (2003) identificou também que domicílios que se encontram mais distantes dos centros urbanos e que possuem piores condições de acesso têm maior superfície contínua de mata intacta, menor área destinada à agricultura comercial e maior chance de adotar técnicas extensivas de manejo Godar et al. (2012) aponta que o desmatamento na Amazônia é particularmente severo ao longo das principais estradas de penetração entre as quais a Rodovia Transamazônica (BR-230) é um exemplo emblemático. A agricultura familiar que antes era tida como principal causadora do desmatamento ao longo da rodovia, após anos de pressão econômica e demográfica, teve sua importância diminuída pelo acúmulo de terra em grandes latifúndios destinados à produção bovina, aumentando os distúrbios causados na região (GODAR et al., 2012); por isso, ao buscarem identificar os fatores que explicam o desmatamento a partir da caracterização dos diferentes perfis de produtores colocam capital, tamanho do lote, distância de mercados e força de trabalho como merecedores de destaque. ...
... Para Godar et al. (2012), entender os diversos perfis de produtores ajuda na formulação de políticas públicas capazes de incorporar as especificidades socioeconômicas e ambientais, o que evita visões equivocadamente generalizadas da realidade. Demonstram ainda em seus estudos, a relação entre sistemas produtivos e desmatamento (utilizando a região oeste do Pará como caso), onde produtores voltados à pecuária têm uma contribuição muito mais significativa para o desmatamento do que aqueles que desenvolvem sistemas produtivos mais voltados para a subsistência, ou seja, o desmatamento ocorre de acordo com as condições e necessidades das famílias, expectativas econômicas e sociais, tecnologia e capital disponíveis, localização do lote e acessibilidade, entre outros aspectos. ...
Resumo: Para melhor contemplar e entender a relação existente entre desmatamento no norte do Mato Grosso e sua relação com os assentamentos presentes na região, o objetivo deste texto foi apresentar uma revisão sistemática da literatura sobre assentamentos rurais e possíveis relações com as dinâmicas de desmatamento na Amazônia, pontualmente buscando responder aos questionamentos: 1). Quais os autores têm mais influenciado os estudos na área (até os dias atuais)? 2). Quais periódicos têm dado destaque ao assunto? e 3). Qual o estado da arte na discussão? Para tal, foi escolhida a base de dados SCOPUS para consulta, através da combinação de diferentes palavras chaves relacionadas ao assunto. Os resultados apontaram que os autores que se dedicam ao tema estão no eixo entre Europa, EUA e Brasil e que o assunto se prolifera através de quatro principais periódicos que primam pela interdisciplinaridade e por isso integram economia, ecologia, gestão florestal, além de estudarem políticas públicas e sistemas socioeconômicos sustentáveis. A revisão aponta três fases distintas do processo de uso e ocupação do solo na região, entretanto, não se pode colocar essas fases em uma sequência linear e descontextualizadas das dinâmicas de mercado, ações políticas e pressões de organizações ambientalistas nacionais e internacionais.
... El manejo que los productores les dan a las diferentes fincas estudiadas muestra que el tamaño de la finca no es un factor limitante para la deforestación, ni el tipo de cultivo que practican. En un estudio realizado por Godar et al. (2012) se observó que, en promedio, los pequeños propietarios deforestaron 38 % de sus propiedades en comparación con el 42 % de propietarios medianos y 30 % para los grandes propietarios. Además, se observó que las personas que llevan menos tiempo habitando las fincas poseen mayor número de plantas nativas en ellas, lo cual indica que a medida que pasa el tiempo de habitación, van desapareciendo las plantas nativas. ...
... La adhesión a la reserva legal (RL) es una obligación legal que requiere actualmente la conservación de, al menos, el 50% de la selva en una propiedad (Godar, Tizado y Pokorny, 2012). En ese estudio, solo la finca 9 estuvo dentro del parámetro de 50% de selva en reserva legal; en esta, los propietarios tienen como principio la agroecología en el contexto social, ambiental y productivo. ...
Human populations in the Amazon are part of the ecosystems in which they live. The scale and intensity of human activities have a significant impact on these ecosystems, with local, national, and global effects. The objective of the study was to evaluate the management patterns of agroecosystems in 15 farms in the municipality of Cacoal, Rondônia, Brazil, in biophysical (environmental) and socioeconomic (family) terms, with the purpose of quantifying the impact of 30 years of deforestation. We were able to conclude that, in the farm area, the education level of the owners and the crops stablished were not determining factors for the size of the legal preserved area. Nevertheless, the management carried out by the land holders does have a direct influence on the forest area that exists in these farms.
... Thus, when the social fabric of these municipalities is made of family farmers and traditional communities, there is great potential for planning development based on locally established production systems [16,17]. The consolidation of small farmers can generate stable landscape mosaics [6,18], and decrease land grabbing and deforestation by large farmers [19]. ...
... Although there is evidence of the local communities' capacity to manage natural resources [16,22,24], governmental support is required to legitimize local production systems [2]. The development of production systems adapted to the region can make local small farmers and traditional communities succeed and resist to the advance of the agricultural frontier over their areas by outside loggers and large commodity farmers [6,18]. ...
The productive inclusion of local communities is one of the main challenges to sustainable rural development in the Amazon. Existing development initiatives often prioritize projects with exogenous production systems; thus, local systems are overlooked, despite their large coverage. Based on surveys conducted in 107 riparian communities and detailed case studies in eight communities doing ranching, logging, and fishing, this study describes local management systems developed by rural communities in the confluence between the Amazon and Xingu Rivers. The study showed that (1) local management systems for buffalo ranching, logging, and fishing agreements were found in 61%, 60%, and 21% of the 107 riparian communities, respectively; (2) these systems are based on local know-how and on technological solutions that are locally available; and (3) the improvement and consolidation of these local systems require governmental support. The study reveals that local and traditional farming practices may underpin sustainable development in the Amazon.
... Despite its importance, papers analyzing the impacts from the transportation infrastructure on the Brazilian deforestation are concentrated almost exclusively on the Legal Amazon (Pfaff 1999;Nepstad et al. 2001;Soares-Filho et al. 2004;Pfaff et al. 2007;P. Fearnside 2007;Godar, Tizado e Pokorny 2012;Walker et al. 2013). In addition, spatial interactions are a common effect when considering forest conversion and land use changes. ...
... It is also worth mentioning that the literature has pointed to the impacts of agricultural practices on the Brazilian deforestation. In particular, we can mention activities related to cattle raising and crops that have recently gained market value, such as soybeans, maize and sugarcane, reflecting the increase in the national and international demand for beef, animal feed and biodiesel (Godar, Tizado e Pokorny 2012;Walker 2014;Faria e Almeida 2016). Therefore, on a robustness check, this papers controls for confounding variables and spatial interactions since they may change the spatial relationship between transportation infrastructure and improve the algorithms predictive performance (Choumert, Combes- The paper is structured into five sections, including this introduction. ...
This paper estimates the relationship between transportation infrastructure and deforestation in Brazil with conventional and spatial econometrics. In addition, we contribute to the emerging field of Spatial/Geographic Data Science with an innovative methodology that explicitly consider space in machine learning algorithms based on supervised regression models, aiming to improve the predictive performance of our estimations. The exploratory analysis pointed to spatial concentration for cleared area and road network in the Centro-Sul and Northeast of the country. Then, we assessed econometrically that transportation infrastructures present a significant conditional correlation with deforestation even after controlling for important structural and institutional characteristics. We also confirm the importance of spatial spillovers, interactions and unobservables to understand forest clearings. From Machine Learning, the empirical evidences show that spatial effects improve the models' predictive power, helping to foresaw out of sample deforestation. Finally, we argue that the integration of spatial econometrics with statistical learning may help to design infrastructure projects that mitigate potential environmental impacts.
... Over half of Earth's remaining tropical rainforests are located in the Amazon Basin 10 , where the deforestation rate has increased since 2013 11 . Locals use fire to illegally clear forest areas to be used for crops (mainly soybean) and cattle grazing [12][13][14] . Under the efforts of Jair Bolsonaro's government to weaken forest conservation policies to step up unsustainable patterns of development 15,16 , the number of forest fires and deforestation has increased sharply in the Brazilian Amazon since 2019 12,17 . ...
... Forest protection in the tropics, mainly including poor and developing countries, requires long-term and comprehensive solutions, along with significant funding 14,63 . Payments for environmental services (PES) have successfully reduced deforestation rates, generated positive poverty alleviation and increased community social capital in several cases [64][65][66][67] . ...
Deforestation, a significant threat to biodiversity, is accelerated by global demand for commodities. Although prior literature has linked deforestation to global supply chains, here we provide a fine-scale representation of spatial patterns of deforestation associated with international trade. Using remote sensing data and a multi-region input–output model, we quantify and map the spatiotemporal changes in global deforestation footprints over 15 years (2001–2015) at a 30-m resolution. We find that, while many developed countries, China and India have obtained net forest gains domestically, they have also increased the deforestation embodied in their imports, of which tropical forests are the most threatened biome. Consumption patterns of G7 countries drive an average loss of 3.9 trees per person per year. Some of the hotspots of deforestation embodied in international trade are also biodiversity hotspots, such as in Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Liberia, Central America and the Amazonian rainforest. Our results emphasize the need to reform zero-deforestation policies through strong transnational efforts and by improving supply chain transparency, public–private engagement and financial support for the tropics.
... Nascimento (2017) destaca que o aumento da pastagem para a criação de gado é a atividade que mais contribui para o desmatamento na Amazônia, compreendendo 65% dessa área desmatada. Uma série de estudos vêm apontando para os impactos negativos de práticas agropecuárias nos desmatamentos na Amazônia, em especial, no que se refere às atividades ligadas à criação de bovinos, que possivelmente geram maiores impactos ambientais do que outras atividades (BRONDIZIO, 2009;BATISTELLA et al ., 2011;GODAR et al ., 2012;ALENCAR et al ., 2015). ...
... , −1 que apresentaram significância estatística ao nível de 1%. Desse modo, no período de 1995 a 2016, pode-se afirmar que houve um avanço da pecuária bovina em microrregiões que anteriormente possuíam um rebanho relativamente menor, comprovando a hipótese levantada por diversos autores (CARVALHO, 2007;BRONDIZIO, 2009;BARONA et al., 2010;MARTINELLI et al., 2010;BATISTELLA et al., 2011;GODAR et al. 2012;ALENCAR et al., 2015;e SILVA et al., 2018). ...
RESUMO: Este trabalho busca investigar a distribuição espaço-temporal do rebanho bovino nas microrregiões brasileiras entre 1990 e 2015, em especial na Amazônia Legal, utilizando o número de cabeças de gado como proxy. A partir de uma análise exploratória, foi identificado um aumento expressivo do rebanho na região da Amazônia Legal, especialmente no Mato Grosso, Rondônia e Pará, além de um grande cluster espacial de alta produção, que se estende desses estados até Goiás e Mato Grosso do Sul. Após identificar a existência de autocorrelação espacial, adotou-se uma análise espacial com dados em painel para analisar tanto o rebanho quanto a densidade bovina (rebanho por km²). Dentre os resultados econométricos no que se refere ao rebanho bovino, verificou-se a existência de um processo de desconcentração da produção brasileira, que tem crescido especialmente na Amazônia Legal. O montante de crédito e os transbordamentos espaciais positivos do aumento do rebanho se mostraram importantes para explicar o crescimento da pecuária no período. Por outro lado, o crédito pecuário transborda negativamente para as regiões vizinhas, diminuindo o crescimento de seus rebanhos. No que tange a densidade bovina, também se verificou uma desconcentração ao longo do território, principalmente via expansão para Amazônia Legal. Além disso, tanto o crédito pecuário quanto a área plantada se mostraram significativas, conjuntamente a um transbordamento positivo nas taxas de crescimento da densidade bovina e da produtividade das principais culturas que atuam como insumos para produção.
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the spatial and temporal distribution of cattle herd in the Brazilian microregions between 1990 and 2015, especially in the Legal Amazon, using the number of cattle as a proxy. From an exploratory analysis, a significant increase in the herd in the Legal Amazon region was identified, especially in Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará, as well as a large spatial cluster of high production, extending from these states to Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul. After identifying the existence of spatial autocorrelation, we used the spatial econometrics techniques in a data panel to analyze both cattle herd and cattle density (cattle herd per km²). Among the econometric results regarding the cattle herd, we had deconcentration in the Brazilian cattle production, together with the evidence of higher growth in the Legal Amazon. The amount of credit and the positive spatial spillovers of the herd increase were important to explain the livestock growth in the period. On the other hand, livestock credit spillovers negatively to neighboring regions, slowing their growth rates. Regarding bovine density, both the credit and the planted area were significant, in addition to a positive spillovers for the cattle density growth and the productivity of the main crops classified as inputs for cattle production. 1. INTRODUÇÃO As atividades relativas à pecuária bovina no Brasil possuem grande importância, dado que o país tem o maior rebanho comercial do mundo, sendo o segundo maior produtor e o maior exportador mundial de carne bovina (CARVALHO; ZEN, 2017). O país figura, no cenário internacional, como um dos principais atores na produção e comércio de carne bovina, reflexo de um estruturado processo de desenvolvimento que elevou não só a produtividade como também a qualidade do produto brasileiro e, consequentemente sua competitividade e abrangência de mercado. Nas últimas quatro décadas, a pecuária sofreu uma modernização no país sustentada por avanços no nível tecnológico dos sistemas de produção e na organização da cadeia, com reflexo na qualidade da carne bovina (EMBRAPA, 2017). Segundo Mcmanaus et al. (2016), esse rápido crescimento e modernização ocorreu principalmente na região Norte e Centro-Oeste do Brasil, especialmente a partir do início desse século.
... The project provides families, associations, and cooperatives with technical assistance and investments to develop sustainable livelihoods through harvesting nontimber products, with the aim of improving their wellbeing and income. The aim is also to provide local people with more power in negotiations with buyers and to support the notion that sustainable value chains are more economically attractive than conventional practices in Mato Grosso, where deforestation leads to conversion to plantations of commodity crops or pasture for livestock (Michalski et al. 2010;Godar et al. 2012). ...
... The complexity of supply chains and lack of oversight of potentially 'unsustainable' farmers (Q3) are recognised as important reasons for the lack of effective implementation of strategies. Such a narrative also aligns with dominant discourse that small-scale farmers are responsible for deforestation or unsustainable practices; despite evidence that even in cases (such as in Brazil) when small-scale agriculture does primarily drive deforestation, other processes such as land consolidation, plantation development, and large-scale ranching become more significant deforestation drivers over time (Godar et al. 2012;Ravikumar et al. 2017). The dominance of such narratives can potentially obscure the development of more diverse and potentially more appropriate policy mixes that more adequately target drivers of deforestation. ...
Governance for sustainable development increasingly involves diverse stakeholder groups, with the promise of enhanced legitimacy and effectiveness in decision-making and implementation. The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) emphasise the important role of multiple (non-state) actors, including businesses and non-governmental organisations, including in efforts to ensure the sustainability of supply chains, and to reduce tropical deforestation and forest degradation. This paper critically analyses sustainability strategies to examine how the UN SDG agendas related to ‘sustainable supply chains’ and ‘tropical forest protection’ are framed and enacted by two contrasting non-state actors: (1) Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV), an NGO in Brazil working to address deforestation, including by supporting farmers to produce commodities, and (2) Unilever, a global consumer goods manufacturer and major buyer of such commodities. By identifying areas of variability in the discursive techniques used by ICV and Unilever, we unearth particular power dynamics that can shape the processes and outcomes of sustainability strategies. This paper finds that the two organisations use diverse strategies at different levels of governance, both participate actively in multi-stakeholder forums to advance their organisations’ goals, but have divergent framings of ‘sustainability’. Despite being considered ‘non-state’ actors, the strategies of the two organisations examined both reflect, and influence, the structural effects of the state in the implementation of non-state organisations’ strategies, and progress towards the SDGs. Although there is alignment of certain strategies related to tropical forest protection, in some cases, there is a risk that more sustainable, alternative approaches to governing forests and supply chains may be excluded.
... It is possible that anthropogenic disturbances, such as deforestation, in the Amazon basin created similar environmental conditions to those found across the native range of T. sayaca, and generated opportunities for its dispersal into the distribution of T. episcopus. These hybrids were collected in 2009 in an area bisected by the Trans-Amazonian Highway (Rodovia Transamazônica), whose construction started in the early 1970's and is a powerful driver of deforestation in central Amazonia [77]. Vegetation transformation from primary forest to open and secondary edge vegetation may have favored the dispersal of T. sayaca into Amazonia. ...
The Neotropical avian genus Thraupis (Passeriformes, Thraupidae) currently comprises seven species that are widespread and abundant throughout their ranges. However, no phylogenetic hypothesis with comprehensive intraspecific sampling is available for the group and, therefore, currently accepted species limits remain untested. We obtained sequence data for two mitochondrial (ND2, cyt-b) and three non-coding nuclear (TGFB2, MUSK, and βF5) markers from 118 vouchered museum specimens. We conducted population structure and coalescent-based species-tree analyses using a molecular clock calibration. We integrated these results with morphometric and coloration analyses of 1,003 museum specimens to assess species limits within Thraupis . Our results confirm that Thraupis is a monophyletic group and support its origin in the late Miocene and subsequent diversification during the Pleistocene. However, we found conflicts with previous phylogenies. We recovered Thraupis glaucocolpa to be sister to all other species in the genus, and T . cyanoptera to the remaining five species. Our phylogenetic trees and population structure analyses uncovered phylogeographic structure within Thraupis episcopus that is congruent with geographic patterns of phenotypic variation and distributions of some named taxa. The first genetic and phenotypic cluster in T . episcopus occurs east of the Andes and is diagnosed by the white patch on the lesser and median wing coverts, whereas the second group has a blue patch on the wing and distributes to the west of Colombia’s eastern Andes. Finally, we present evidence of hybridization and ongoing gene flow between several taxa at different taxonomic levels and discuss its taxonomic implications.
... Multi-temporal RS in combination with landscape metrics is used in landscape ecology and road ecology to investigate habitat loss, fragmentation, and other direct and indirect impacts on Amazon ecosystems due to linear infrastructure, agriculture, and other exploitation activities (Cabral A.I.R. et al., 2018;Godar et al., 2012;Grecchi et al., 2015;Renò and Novo, 2019). ...
... Multi-temporal RS in combination with landscape metrics is used in landscape ecology and road ecology to investigate habitat loss, fragmentation, and other direct and indirect impacts on Amazon ecosystems due to linear infrastructure, agriculture, and other exploitation activities (Cabral A.I.R. et al., 2018;Godar et al., 2012;Grecchi et al., 2015;Renò and Novo, 2019 ...
... Several studies suggest a correlation between land concentration and large-scale deforestation in tropical forests (Souza et al., 2013;Assunção et al., 2017). In Brazil, despite a trend of deforestation, measured in absolute terms, being concentrated on large and medium-sized farms (Godar et al., 2014;L'Roe et al., 2016;Richards and VanWey, 2016), small-sized farms may have higher percentages of relative deforestation within their properties (Godar et al., 2012;Richards and VanWey, 2016). Environmental certifications and demands from some agricultural commodity supply chains may also play an important role in reducing illegal large-scale deforestation (Nepstad et al., 2014;Assunção et al., 2017). ...
Agribusiness expansion and intensification in Brazil have prompted an abrupt change in land use and occupation in the Amazonian agricultural frontier since the 1980s. Considering the increasing suppression of native vegetation, riparian areas represent an important tool for protecting ecosystem services and biodiversity. Although the effects of land tenure and land use on large-scale deforestation in the Amazon have been widely assessed, their roles on riparian deforestation remains poorly explored. Here we assessed two municipalities – Querência (QRC) and São José do Xingu (SJX) – located in an agricultural frontier of the Brazilian Amazon to explore the relationship of illegal deforestation in riparian areas and different types of land use and property-sizes, as well as the impact of the Native Vegetation Protection Law (NVPL, Federal Law 12,651/2012) on environmental compliance. Therefore, we developed a robust geodatabase using hydrographic, land use and land tenure data. Riparian areas protected as Permanent Preservation Areas (PPAs) were delimited and their land cover mapped for 2012 and 2018 using high spatial resolution satellite images and unsupervised K-means classification method. We also applied landscape metrics to analyze riparian PPA structure and dynamics. Our results indicated that NVPL was followed by a downward trend in the riparian vegetation deficits in all land use types and property-sizes, but it did not stop new clearings. Although riparian PPAs in minifundios (≤ 80 ha) and agrarian reform settlements tended to concentrate higher relative deforestation amounts, large-sized farms were responsible for most of the absolute extent of riparian deforestation in both years, accounting for 76–78% in QRC and 93% in SJX. They were also the main drivers of new clearings, for which account for 71% in QRC and 86% in SJX. The impact of land use on riparian deforestation was not homogeneous among properties, possibly reflecting different levels of technological investment and management techniques. In the so-called consolidated areas, in which the riparian PPA minimum width was reduced by NVPL, decreases in deforestation between 2012 and 2018 were lower. In these areas, vegetation coverage did not exceed 23% in any of the study areas. In the riparian PPAs that was not under consolidated areas, the vegetation coverage was of at least 85% of the area. Local environmental governance may also have affected the riparian deforestation dynamics, in which stricter monitoring and law enforcement lead to lower deforestation extents. Finally, landscape metrics revealed the importance of managing riparian areas at the landscape level, as local improvements did not necessarily result in connectivity gains.
... Ces pâturages sont parfois liés à la spéculation foncière : leur établissement se faisant pour justifier la propriété foncière (Armenteras et al., 2013;Seymour and Harris, 2019 (Baraloto et al., others, 2015). Par exemple, la transamazonienne construite dans les années 1970 au Brésil a favorisé le développement agricole (Godar et al., 2012 ;Li et al., 2019). ...
Les forêts tropicales abritent la biodiversité la plus riche de notre planète et jouent un rôle particulièrement important dans le stockage du carbone et le cycle de l’eau. Le suivi de la dégradation de ce milieu est un défi d’actualité car il représente un danger immédiat pour l’environnement et la biodiversité. Par ailleurs, depuis 2014, la mise en orbite des satellites Sentinel dans le cadre du programme européen Copernicus constitue une réelle révolution dans le panorama des capteurs d’observation de la Terre existants jusqu’alors. En effet, des données optiques (Sentinel-2) et radar (Sentinel-1) sont, depuis lors, accessibles librement à tous et permettent des acquisitions à une résolution décamétrique et une répétitivité allant de 5 à 12 jours selon la région analysée. L’objectif de cette thèse consiste donc à développer des méthodes pour le suivi de la forêt tropicale basées sur des données radar Sentinel-1 et des produits de cartographie exogènes. Plus spécifiquement, l’étude a pour but de fournir des outils pour observer le déboisement, en produisant des cartes en quasi-temps réel, puis en caractérisant les zones détectées avec la cause de leur déboisement. Ces informations sont nécessaires à l’estimation et au suivi du déboisement sur les zones tropicales, et à la lutte contre les défriches illicites.La région test est la Guyane. Couverte à plus de 95% par la forêt, elle est caractérisée par de nombreux types de perte forestière permettant de valider la méthode sur de nombreuses caractéristiques. De plus, ce territoire étant relativement bien surveillé, beaucoup de données cartographiques d’occupation du sol sont disponibles pour situer les déboisements ou pour servir de référence au niveau spatial. La première phase du travail est l’amélioration d’une méthode de détection du déboisement à partir des données Sentinel-1 et son évaluation sur la Guyane. La validation de la carte produite s’appuie sur 1 867 données (de différents types de déboisement) produites de manière indépendante, et représentant un total de 2 124.5 ha à travers toute la Guyane sur une période de 2 ans. Les résultats obtenus sur la Guyane au niveau spatial sont très satisfaisants : 96% de précision sur les surfaces déboisées et 81.5% de rappel. La mise en place d’une campagne terrain a rendu possible l’estimation du côté quasi-temps réel de la méthode sur 26 parcelles et avance un délai médian de détection de 3.5 jours. Une comparaison avec un produit optique souvent pris comme référence, a démontré l’avantage des données Sentinel-1 pour ces régions caractérisées par de fortes couvertures nuageuses. Cette meilleure performance s’observe tant sur le plan spatial (rappel du radar supérieur de plus de 35%), que sur le plan temporel (un tiers des zones déboisées nécessitant une surveillance est détecté avec 3 mois de retard par les images optiques). La deuxième partie du travail consiste à caractériser les zones déboisées détectées afin de déterminer leur cause. Pour cela, des méthodes d’apprentissage automatique ont été utilisées pour choisir des indicateurs cartographiques pertinents, permettant de produire un modèle prédictif simple, fiable, automatique et utilisable à l’échelle de la Guyane en temps-réel. Les indicateurs F-scores de chaque type de déboisement sont de 97% pour l’orpaillage et l’agriculture, 95% pour l’exploitation forestière, 87% pour l’urbanisation et 76% pour la classe « autre », pouvant se rapporter à des perturbations naturelles. Ce travail a montré la pertinence d’utiliser des indicateurs cartographiques pour déterminer la cause des déboisements en Guyane, permettant cette identification en temps-réel. Ces travaux qui démontrent le potentiel des données Sentinel-1 pour le suivi continu des forêts tropicales ont été menés en interaction avec les acteurs locaux. Ils montrent également la complémentarité de systèmes provenant de capteurs différents et pourront être poursuivis en ce sens
... L'expansion des terres liées à l'agriculture est considérée comme l'un des principaux, sinon le facteur principal de la déforestation. De nombreuses études mettent en évidence ce constat (Walker et al. 2000;Barona et al. 2010;Godar et al. 2012;Arima et al. 2014;Nepstad et al. 2014 Cependant, certains auteurs assurent que « [...] l'élevage permet d'utiliser des terres qui ne peuvent être cultivées en raison de conditions environnementales difficiles et contribue ainsi à élargir la base de ressources de la société » (trad. lib.) (Erb et al., 2016). ...
... En segundo lugar, la simulación de políticas que combinó la concentración de tierras y grandes recategorizaciones se asoció con aumentos en el tamaño de los eventos de deforestación ilegal mayores que los causados por cualquiera de las dos políticas por sí solas. Este es un escenario plausible considerando la tendencia creciente en los precios internacionales de las materias primas y las rentas extraordinarias de la producción de materias primas (Alcañiz & Gutierrez, 2020;Godar et al., 2012). ...
Deforestation is a main threat to the biosphere due to its contribution to biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, and land degradation. Most deforestation is illegal and continues unabated, representing around half of the total deforestation in the tropics and subtropics. Quantifying illegal deforestation is challenging, let alone assessing the social and institutional processes underlying its occurrence. We tackle this challenge by quantifying the relative influence of individual (i.e., landholders’ power, landholding size) and contextual (i.e., subnational institutions, agricultural suitability) factors on the type and size of illegal deforestation in the Argentine Dry Chaco, a major commodity production frontier and global deforestation hotspot. We build a Bayesian network fed with data of 244 illegal deforestation events, obtained from journalistic articles, grey literature, key informant interviews, and geospatial analyses. The results reveal that more powerful landholders were associated with larger illegal deforestation events. Policy simulations suggest that higher concentration of land in the hands of powerful landholders and more flexible subnational forest regulations would escalate illegal deforestation. This points to the need for a smart policy mix that integrates across economic, agricultural, and environmental sectors to halt illegal deforestation at commodity production frontiers. A land tenure reform can facilitate forest protection, while incentives to land-use diversification and the criminal prosecution of illegal deforestation are critical to shift landholder behavior towards more balanced production and conservation outcomes.
... L'expansion des terres liées à l'agriculture est considérée comme l'un des principaux, sinon le facteur principal de la déforestation. De nombreuses études mettent en évidence ce constat (Walker et al. 2000;Barona et al. 2010;Godar et al. 2012;Arima et al. 2014;Nepstad et al. 2014 Cependant, certains auteurs assurent que « [...] l'élevage permet d'utiliser des terres qui ne peuvent être cultivées en raison de conditions environnementales difficiles et contribue ainsi à élargir la base de ressources de la société » (trad. lib.) (Erb et al., 2016). ...
Le véganisme est un mouvement protéiforme porteur d’une certaine radicalité qui participe à l’interrogation des relations entre humains et non humains. Un tel questionnement vient renforcer l’hypercomplexité du social à plus forte raison avec la prise en compte des changements environnementaux et climatiques à l’heure de l’Anthropocène. En quoi une géographie humanimale prenant en compte une perspective végane, et ce au regard de l’ampleur de tels changements environnementaux, est-elle en mesure d’éclairer les enjeux relationnels entre système carniste et changements environnementaux de manière heuristique ? Le redoublement par une perspective anarchiste de la lecture critique des rapports à l'animal en tant qu'il est un « produit » de consommation, alimentaire et domestique met en exergue un système de domination anthroparchique reliant les échelles ontologiques extrêmes, de l’animal humain et non humain, au monde. Après une synthèse proposée à l’échelle planétaire et continentale, une seconde partie se centre sur le système
anthroparchique à partir d’espaces emblématiques avec les spatialités qui y sont attachées que sont les fermes, industrielles et artisanales, et les abattoirs. Une dernière partie discute brièvement des pratiques spatiales et discursives qui s’inscrivent dans l’horizon de la résistance au système anthroparchique, avant de conclure.
... The state of Rondônia is located within the region known as the "Arc of Deforestation" that comprises the most deforested areas in recent decades in the Brazilian Amazon. Rondônia has ranked third in deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon, behind only the states of Mato Grosso and Pará (INPE, 2019;Godar et al., 2012). ...
Tropical forests are providers of relevant ecosystem services at different spatial scales, but they have been under intense human pressure in recent decades, primarily because of their conversion into agricultural or pasture lands. Colonization projects have been a significant driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon since the 1970s. Such projects are mostly agricultural settlements that were established following specific spatial designs that affected land distribution, social connections, access to natural resource and infrastructure, and the mitigation of environmental disturbances. We analyzed spatiotemporal deforestation datasets from settlement projects planned and implemented using three spatial designs (fishbone, dendritic, and spontaneous) to assess the effects on deforestation and landscape fragmentation in the state of Rondônia, in the Brazilian Amazon. We applied landscape metrics to estimate the different impacts on landscape between 1985 and 2015. Our results indicate that approximately 50% of the primary forests, mostly tropical forests, were converted to other types of land uses during the study period. We observed that while the fishbone design allowed the connection of forest patches along an East-West axis, it showed an opposite effect on the North-South one. In contrast, the dendritic design proved to be more efficient in protecting primary forests by causing lesser landscape fragmentation and conserving larger forest patches. However, the landscape impacts by different settlement spatial designs showed similar fragmentation trajectories and deforestation rates overtime. Based on our results, we have concluded that the combination of settlement designs, presence of protected areas, and local community participation have helped prevent forest fragmentation and deforestation in the study region. Our analysis suggests that settlement designs alone are not sufficient to curb deforestation and forest fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon. As a result, we indicate that controlling both processes will require the enforcement of public and environmental policies integrated with land occupation planning and strategies to support sustainable agricultural systems.
... Deforestation could affect fish recruitment, and this effect can be exacerbated in the next decades with the development of planned infrastructure projects in the Tapajós Basin, including ports and highways, especially in the region upstream from the studied lower Tapajós (Goulding et al. 2019). Highways also contribute to the deforestation of surrounding areas since they increase accessibility for the development of new settlements (Godar et al. 2012). Livestock production in the middle and lower sections of the Tapajós River are also a big deforestation threat in the region (Nepstad et al. 2002(Nepstad et al. , 2011Bustamante et al. 2012). ...
In the Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazon, fishing is an important activity, especially for low-income riverine populations. Unfortunately, the Tapajós River fish diversity and abundance are threatened by several anthropogenic drivers, including deforestation and overfishing. We modeled the lower Tapajós River's food web and simulated changes in biomass compartments as a response to increases in deforestation (loss of floodplain forest habitat) and on artisanal fishing pressure over 30 years. According to our simulations, the large-bodied species could be reduced drastically while small-bodied and fast-growing species could be favored by fishing effort increasing. The loss of floodplain forest is expected to cause a general decline (23%) of the total standing fish biomass. This reduction could reflect greater losses on species that are directly dependent on resources from the floodplain forests, such as fruits and seeds. These results indicated that the food web of the lower Tapajós River is structurally characterized by bottom-up control, through the use of basal resources, such as detritus (mostly from decomposing plants), fruits, seeds, terrestrial, and aquatic invertebrates. Furthermore, the simulations’ results highlight that the protection of the floodplain forest through the existing protected areas will be of essential importance in the future to maintain fish biomass, sustainable artisanal fishing, and improve the food security of Amazonian riverine inhabitants.
... No participants self-identified as indigenous. Smallholders (≤100 ha) represented 51% of interviewees, medium landholders (101-600 ha) 46% and large landholders (>600 ha) 3%-which, incidentally, corresponds closely to their regional frequency distribution (Godar et al., 2012). ...
Conservationists often assume that connection with and caring about nature's well‐being is strongly linked to ecological knowledge. Existing evidence on the link between ecological knowledge and psychological nature connection is mixed, geographically limited to countries in the Global North, and does not scrutinise potential differences in determinants of ecological knowledge and nature connection.
We investigate the relationship between psychological nature connection and ecological knowledge of local bird species, and assess their associations with potential drivers, including access to, contact with, and reliance on nature and socio‐demographic characteristics. Our study is carried among a novel participant population of colonist farmers living along a major deforestation frontier in the Brazilian Amazon.
Our study context has high conservation relevance and provides an ideal setting to assess the extent to which conservation psychology's insights from the Global North hold true elsewhere. Tropical farm‐forest frontiers suffer from intense habitat and biodiversity loss, and farmers with migrant origins are important yet rarely studied conservation stakeholders. Importantly, farmers' experiences of nature are likely to vary considerably due to the wide range of socio‐demographic, economic, geographical and cultural diversity.
Interviewees scored highly on two indices of nature connection, but scores were higher among older people and those with greater contact with nature. Bird identification knowledge was generally low to moderate, and higher among men and younger people. Species more frequently recognised were regionally common, larger‐bodied or associated with non‐forest habitats.
Ecological knowledge of birds and nature connection were not correlated, and they did not have any predictors in common. Our results indicate that colonist farmers are capable of forming strong connections with nature, even if they rarely possess detailed knowledge of local forest biodiversity. Considering the complex and apparently context‐dependent relationship between knowing and caring about nature, it is unwise to assume that changing one would automatically affect the other.
... These projects often resulted in a series of negative consequences for local society and the environment. Indeed, a large body of studies has already detailed the environmental impacts, particularly deforestation, caused by the opening of major highways in the Amazon (Alves 2002;Brondizio and Moran 2012;Fearnside 1987;Godar et al. 2012). ...
The chapter presents a reflection on the projects of the Brazilian State, especially after the military coup of 1964, which, with the strong support of the national entrepreneurship, made the Amazon the strategic locus of the development model adopted for the country. We intend to analyse the general power strategy of the dictatorship in Brazil and demonstrate how the Amazon became the political and economic axis in this governmental experience, materialised in several public policies. Under these assumptions, it is important to study governmental discourses and practices that underpin the support that redefined power relations in Brazil, especially by focusing on the various political devices that are embodied in laws, decrees, plans and institutional programmes and in the State’s own administrative reform. This last one, carried out during the dictatorship, was not discussed in the National Congress and was supported by the powers of exception of the Second Institutional Act approved in December 1966. The business logic prevailed as an administrative practice, which persisted in the political-administrative structure of the country after the military regime.
... These projects often resulted in a series of negative consequences for local society and the environment. Indeed, a large body of studies has already detailed the environmental impacts, particularly deforestation, caused by the opening of major highways in the Amazon (Alves 2002;Brondizio and Moran 2012;Fearnside 1987;Godar et al. 2012). ...
Climate change represents a multilevel challenge, simultaneously relating to the local and global scales. National governments are key actors in developing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Brazil, China and Mozambique are cases where climate risks may deepen vulnerabilities and undermine development prospects. This chapter presents an analysis of key climate change strategies and action in Brazil, China and Mozambique since the 1970s, when the environmental issue emerged onto the world political agenda following the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. Our analysis focuses on the institutional arrangements and political strategies that have emerged since then in Brazil, China and Mozambique and how these countries have addressed the climate issue in their political processes until 2019. Our results show that both Brazil and China have focused much of their efforts on mitigating actions, that is, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Their climate agenda is motivated by treating climate risk in this way, while the adaptation agenda is incipient in these countries. On the other hand, in Mozambique, political action on climate change is largely based on the need to respond to the risks and disasters that are intensified by these changes.
... The fact that the farm size was positively correlated to forest area suggests that small-scale farmers, after the initial settlement phase, tend to slow down the conversion of their forests for agricultural purposes (Godar et al., 2012), possibly in response to limited family workforce availability (Schneider, 2016). It is, thus, not reasonable to expect that farmers with less than 10 ha would conserve the forests on their land. ...
Agroforestry Concessions, foreseen by the new Peruvian Forest Law, anticipate integrating thousands of small-scale farmers encroached on public forest land into the formal economy, to strengthen local livelihoods, stimulate land restoration, and halt deforestation. But, there are contrasting opinions regarding the potential of agroforestry and land tenure security to create economically and environmentally robust livelihoods. To better understand the relevance of this potential, this study analyses the economic and environmental robustness of 118 informally settled small-scale cocoa farmers in three districts in the Peruvian Amazon. The study shows that the vast majority of these farmers faced serious obstacles to overcome. Less than 20 % of the households have managed to establish economically robust livelihoods on a robust natural production basis. Farm size, specialization in cocoa, and participation in associations positively influenced the economic performance of the households but had little effect on the quality of natural resource management and on the capacity to conserve forests. To harness the potential of cocoa farming requires long-term support well adapted to local specificities. The legal recognition of sustainable land-use practices on public forest land is a meaningful step. To effectively address deforestation, however, requires broader integrated approaches that go far beyond the promotion of sustainable land-uses.
... The occupation of the Brazilian Amazon from the 1970s resulted in the process of intense deforestation, converting some land with forest to land without forest, from the direct induction of human beings (Falcão & Noa, 2016;Godar et al., 2012). Added to this scenario is the advancement of logging, the growth of livestock and agribusiness, and investments in infrastructure, mainly the opening of roads and paving, such as the Transamazônica Highway (Fearnside, 2019a;Soares-Filho et al., 2005) contributing to the increase in the deforestation rate. ...
The Brazilian Amazon deforestation is the context for this article, approached as a crime against humanity and wildlife. Recently, Amazon forest fires have also worried most of the economically developed nations, generating criticism and demanding that the Brazilian Government be more active in preventing fires and deforestation. It is necessary to guarantee the wellbeing and health of millions of animal species that live in this habitat, avoiding their extinctions and encouraging the preservation of the forest and its inhabitants. Agribusiness, together with illegal timber trade, are blamed for most of the deforestation. In this paper, we present and discuss Brazilian Amazon deforestation data, addressing the role of agribusiness as dependent on good environmental governance. We argue how stewardship behavior needs to become a path to stop deforestation and wildlife eviction and we reflect on what marketers in Brazil and the world can do to better protect the Amazon rainforest. We conclude that the Government, companies, and society must be coresponsible for the protection of the Amazon rainforest through conservation transparency, dialogue, environmental awareness, and sustainability in production and consumption practices.
... The principal deforestation agents in the Amazon are farmers acting at different scales (Godar et al., 2012, Fearnside, 2017. Small scale or familiar agriculture normally uses the traditional technique of slash and burn of small parcels (1-2 ha) of old growth or secondary forests to implement agricultural fields (Pedroso et al., 2008). ...
Secondary forests occupy extensive areas in tropical regions, providing an opportunity to investigate their relevance to biodiversity restoration. However, determining the conservation value of secondary forests and evaluating their successional trajectories depends on how biodiversity is measured. Here, we explore different biodiversity dimensions to understand how bird assemblages recover from forest disturbance caused by small scale farmers in the Amazon. We sampled bird species through standard visual and auditory censuses in 24 small plots of 1-hectare distributed in a paired design of old growth forests and secondary forests from different age categories (early, middle and late succession). We used 12 biodiversity metrics to explore the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic dimensions of bird diversity. Total species richness and evenness was similar between secondary and old growth forests. In contrast, the number of passerine species and disturbance-vulnerable species were higher in the controls of old growth forests compared to secondary forests. The relative abundance of birds with distinct functional traits consistently differed between the secondary forests of different age categories and their old growth forest counterparts. Functional evenness and divergence increased with canopy height and basal area through forest regeneration. In contrast, bird phylogenetic diversity in secondary forests was higher compared to those found in old growth forests while accounting for forest types and age categories of secondary forests. Bird species tolerant to disturbances partially compensate the loss of avian taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity during the conversion of undisturbed forests to agricultural fields. Changes in functional evenness and functional divergence suggest that resources used by birds are altered along the secondary succession and that the niche complementarity among species is reduced in more intensively managed sites. Ecological succession can be highly complex in terms of taxa identity, their functional roles and evolutionary history. Therefore, measurements that explore distinct biodiversity dimensions are fundamental to understanding how species are organized in assemblages across time and space.
... Deforested areas in the region totaled about 680,000 km 2 (~19 % of the original forest area) by the time PPCDAm was launched in 2004 (Souza et al., 2013), out of which 25 % was estimated to be abandoned or underused (Brazil, 2009). Grazing activities were responsible for ~80 % of the Amazonian deforestation (Tyukavina et al., 2017), mainly associated with large-and medium-sized private landholdings (Godar et al., 2012). Soy plantations were expanding much more rapidly than other crops: 57 % increase from 1999 to 2001 in contrast to 11 % and 2 % declines in rice and corn areas (Brazil, 2004). ...
... AGRAFNP (2015) estimates that he or she would make an average capital gain of 17,000, more than three times the price of pasture, as shown in Figure 23 below. Godar et al. (2011) have shown that along the Transamazon highway, the total amount of deforested area on properties is higher for largeholders, while the percentage of the property that is deforested is higher for smallholders. In other words, while smallholders contribute less to total deforestation than largeholders, they nonetheless deforest a relatively bigger proportion of their own areas. ...
Current approaches to pricing have proved inexplicable and unable to deliver sustainable development. This study explores how the combination of accounting logic and the concept of ‘true price’ — first proposed by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) — can provide a novel, dynamic and comprehensive causal model to understand how prices can contribute to unsustainability. Case studies are used to verify if the purported model is fit for explaining real-world issues, here, farmers facing untrue prices during the global coffee crisis (1999-2003) and on deforestation fronts in the Brazilian Amazon. The analysis of these case studies leads us to framing true prices as a necessary condition of sustainability, although it is probably not the only one. Combining accounting as a gauging tool and true price as a reference point lends both concrete meaning and technical grounding to the notion of sustainability, and guidelines to measure progress toward it. We make recommendations on how producers, consumers, investors, and public policymakers could further true prices and thus support sustainability.
... Os autores ressaltam que é preciso considerar que muitos assentamentos foram instalados em áreas já desmatadas (Alencar et al., 2016); muitas vezes desconsiderando aptidão agrícola e presença de populações tradicionais (Leite et al., 2011); e sem crédito e assistência técnica voltados para modelos sustentáveis de produção familiar (Pasquis et al., 2005). Além disso, a maior parte da área desmatada nos assentamentos da Amazônia ocorre em polígonos de desmatamento maiores do que 10 ha, o que sugere a ação de não beneficiários da reforma agrária (Alencar et al. 2016) e a reconcentração de terras em assentamentos, com apropriação e compra ilegal de lotes (Simmons, 2004;Godar et al., 2012). 2 A integração de incentivos para a manutenção e recomposição da floresta aos sistemas produtivos é essencial para combater o desmatamento nessas áreas e expandir as atividades de recomposição florestal e desenvolvimento sustentável. ...
In this study, we described the dynamics of land-cover and gross carbon stocks and emissions (C) in 55 settlements in Legal Amazon, located in northern Mato Grosso state, between 2008 and 2016 and discussed their implications for climate change policies. C estimates were based on land-cover changes, obtained with Spot, Sentinel and Landsat image processing and field visits, and secondary data of mean carbon values per vegetation class. The 55 settlements were originally covered by 685,000 ha of native vegetation (103 Tg C). Deforestation by 2016 was over 65%. Most of it (77%) occurred by 2008. Although restoration of consolidated areas (areas deforested before July 2008) is not mandatory, it can generate revenue from carbon credits, environmental reserve quotas, forest management and agroforestry. The deforested area per settlement by 2008 was strongly related to the deforestation per settlement between 2008 and 2016. This suggests that those who deforested a lot until 2008 tend to continue to do so until 2016. The annual deforestation rate between 2008 and 2016 was 12.7 thousand ha /year. If it remains the same, all native vegetation will have been suppressed in less than two decades. In general, the Sustainable-Development-Project settlements had less deforestation, which indicates that it is possible to associate agrarian reform and economic and social development with the conservation of the Amazon rainforest. However, it is necessary to strengthen policies toward payment for ecosystem services and forest management products (low-impact forest management and non-timber forest products). In order to do so, the integration of federal, state and local governments and market efforts is paramount.
... The leather supply chain illustrates the complexity of supply chain transparency and the challenge to reach small suppliers and consumers at both ends of the chain. While the role of cattle in deforestation is subject to increased public scrutiny (Nepstad et al., 2006;Godar et al., 2012;Gibbs et al., 2016), the leather commodity chain has remained less visible until recently. We therefore explore how specific practices of transparency in the leather supply chain are linked to specific interpretations of sustainability, legitimacy, and fairness in governance outcomes. ...
Large-scale agricultural production and trade of commodities is linked to deforestation risk in the tropics. This article explores political discourses of deforestation risk in the bovine leather supply chain in Brazil. It discusses how specific interpretations and practices of transparency in the leather supply chain affect legitimacy, fairness and sustainability outcomes. The article applies a political discourse analysis to data collected in multiple localities in Brazil between May and July 2018. The data entails thirty-nine semi-structured, recorded, and transcribed interviews, in the form of both face-to-face and video call interviews. We find that the concept of sustainable supply chains is as much a political term, as it is an economic and managerial term. The results show that different discourses articulate deforestation risk of bovine leather differently and highlights how the storylines of each discourse bring attention both to what is made visible and invisible in relation to sustainability, legitimacy, and fairness. Moreover, the results emphasise the importance of the role and voice of frontier settlers, by presenting how their storylines inform a political discourse on livelihoods. We argue that a simplistic understanding of transparency may lead to negative implications for livelihoods and sustainability outcomes. Accordingly, there is a need for increased public scrutiny of supply chains, including the leather one, and for special attention to unequal power relations and the importance of meaningful inclusion of vulnerable groups and populations.
... In this study, we selected three regions within the Brazilian Amazon as study sites. These scenes encompass major deforestation centers that have developed along the "TransAmazon" (BR-230) [66][67][68] and "Cuiabá-Santarem" (BR-163) [69,70] highways ( Figure 1). In the Amazon, roads are the driving forces for the spatial distribution of deforestation in the Amazon, where most deforestation occurs in the neighborhood of the main highway [71,72]. ...
Mapping deforestation is an essential step in the process of managing tropical rainforests. It lets us understand and monitor both legal and illegal deforestation and its implications, which include the effect deforestation may have on climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. Given that there is ample room for improvements when it comes to mapping deforestation using satellite imagery, in this study, we aimed to test and evaluate the use of algorithms belonging to the growing field of deep learning (DL), particularly convolutional neural networks (CNNs), to this end. Although studies have been using DL algorithms for a variety of remote sensing tasks for the past few years, they are still relatively unexplored for deforestation mapping. We attempted to map the deforestation between images approximately one year apart, specifically between 2017 and 2018 and between 2018 and 2019. Three CNN architectures that are available in the literature-SharpMask, U-Net, and ResUnet-were used to classify the change between years and were then compared to two classic machine learning (ML) algorithms-random forest (RF) and multilayer perceptron (MLP)-as points of reference. After validation, we found that the DL models were better in most performance metrics including the Kappa index, F1 score, and mean intersection over union (mIoU) measure, while the ResUnet model achieved the best overall results with a value of 0.94 in all three measures in both time sequences. Visually, the DL models also provided classifications with better defined deforestation patches and did not need any sort of post-processing to remove noise, unlike the ML models, which needed some noise removal to improve results.
... A significant body of literature has described the socio-environmental impacts and landscape transformations emerging from these processes. These include deforestation (Margulis, 2004), land accumulation (Godar et al., 2012), migration (Browder et al., 2008), urbanization (Ludewigs et al., 2009), inequalities (Guedes et al., 2012), and conflicts (Schmink and Wood, 2012;Simmons, 2004). ...
The recent Amazon fire crises and the emerging anti-environmental governmental rhetoric across some important countries have again brought to the fore discussions on tropical forests, climate change, and sustainable development. It is more crucial than ever to find viable models that both protect forests and stimulate socioeconomic development as intertwined goals in tropical landscapes. Among the proposals to address that aim—for example, payments for ecosystem services, forest and landscape restoration, and sustainable forest management—sustainable agricultural production has assumed a vital relevance. This dissertation focuses on that relevance. More precisely, it discusses the extent to which sustainable oil palm expansion can be a viable option to reconcile conservation and development in the Amazon. The book’s eight chapters analyze in great detail an expansion process shaped by a unique governance context characterized by robust measures to prevent the deforestation of primary forests and to use degraded lands, and to support the inclusion of smallholder farmers in the business through contract farming schemes. It does so grounded in extensive fieldwork activities carried out between 2014 and 2015 in the Amazonian state of Pará, where the bulk of Brazil’s agricultural investments are located. Brazil has achieved remarkable outcomes in terms of preventing deforestation and stimulating a fairer and more equitable distribution of benefits. This shows that oil palm expansion is not necessarily associated with devastating consequences, such as those observed in Southeast Asia. Yet, the Brazilian model does have some important limitations in terms of inclusivity and viability, which questions its socio-environmental orientation in the long run. By discussing the observed merits and failures, the case study presented here provides an interesting example of the existing challenges and dilemmas encountered when attempting to align agricultural development, poverty alleviation, and forest conservation. As such, this dissertation contributes to global debates on agricultural sustainability governance, smallholder farming, and rural development in general.
... Thus, landscapes dominated by small farmers are much more fragmented and heterogeneous in terms of landscape elements while larger producers tend to produce more homogenous landscapes. There is evidence that the diversity of landscape elements, particularly in combination with secondary forests of different ages, through their more heterogeneous structures and diverse species composition, positively influence the security and quality of environmental services such as biodiversity, protection of soil and water and pollination (Godar et al. 2012b). ...
The question of how can we satisfy the demands for rural development without exceeding ecosystem limitations remains largely unsolved. Conventional rural development strategies relying on the expansion of agro-industrial production schemes and the exploitation of valuable resources for global markets have proved that they can achieve economic and-under certain conditions-social goals, but the strategieshave significant social and environmental costs. This can beseen particularly in the agricultural frontiers of the Amazon region where massive expansion in agriculture and forestryhave adversely affected local populations and natural resources. This paper explores if and how far an alternative approach, one that focuses on the cultures and capacities of different land user groups active in the region,might help to solve this problem. Our analysis builds on the hypothesis that land user groups,due to individual and cultural specificities, show widely different social, economic and environmental balances. It goes on to suggest that policies aiming at the promotion of groups with positive socio-environmental balances might be more effective in achieving an environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive rural development than can policies that are merely oriented towards the integration of land users in global value chains. By using empirical evidence from our own research,statistics and literature, this article describes the productive, social and environmental outcomes of land usesystems attributable to typical land user groups. The findings reveal that significant differences exist in the socio-environmental balances of the land user groups studied. Large cattle ranchers and agro-industries have the capacity to effectively deliver commodities in quantity and at prices demanded by people in urban and industrialized settings. Meanwhile,small-scale diversified and specialized farmers are highly vulnerable to conventional development policies. However, theyplay an important economic and social role at a relatively low environmental cost. The article ends by reflecting on the need for "an own" rural development approach that is less driven by the economic interests of urban actors external to rural contexts, butinstead,advocates for policies that foster existing actor-specific potentials for rural development that more realistically respond to the interests of the rural actors themselves. 2
... The expansion of the agricultural frontier as a result of macroeconomic demands is recognized and decried by scientists and activists alike as a direct driver of land clearing (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al. 2002;Pacheco 2009;Godar et al. 2012;Barber et al. 2014;Mangonnet et al. 2018;Fernández and Milmanda 2019). Consequently, our two final hypotheses are based on economic pressures and the expansion of the agricultural sector. ...
Does subnational state capacity stop deforestation? The commodity boom of the 2000s significantly expanded the agriculture frontier in most provinces of Argentina, with devastating effects to native forests. Interestingly, some of the subnational governments that presided over the commodities super cycle also sought to reform the forestry sector to reduce rampant deforestation, despite promoting and benefiting from agricultural expansion. A national program to protect native forests through Payment for Environmental Services (PES) was created to be implemented in local districts. We argue that the success of new forest protections is contingent on the capacity of subnational governments to implement the law. In our study, we find that changes in provincial deforestation rates are explained by the interaction of state capacity on the one hand and high land prices driven by commodity pressures on the other. Our research carries implications for students and practitioners of forest PES. Our findings underscore the fundamental role subnational state governments play in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
... The cattle herd growth in Legal Amazon is an important deforestation inductor, a fact supported by Carvalho (2007), Barona et al., (2010), Martinelli (2010), Godar et al. (2012), Alencar et al. (2015, Faria and Almeida (2016) and Nascimento (2017), who identified in this activity the main responsible for the agricultural frontier expansion in the region. However, the increase in the herd did not spillover to neighbors' municipalities, not inducing indirect environmental degradation. ...
This paper aims to understand how economic development affected deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from 2000 to 2015, using an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). We analyzed and controlled the presence of spatial and temporal dependence with ESDA and Dynamic Spatial Panel methodologies. For the EKC model, despite obtaining an inverted "U" format, the majority of municipalities in Amazon are far below the turning point. Therefore, economic development may act as a deforestation inductor in the following decades. We confirmed the importance of the spatial-temporal components, which explains the spatial spillovers and agglomeration along with temporal inertia for deforestation. In addition, cattle herd growth along with rural credit, sugarcane productivity, extraction of wood and scale effects from agricultural sector are statistical significant, acting as environmental degraders. On the other hand, we have the productivity gains on soy and maize that inhibit deforestation. We also highlight the importance of considering land use dynamics and cross-agricultural activities leakages in policies targeting deforestation, since crops indirectly affect environmental degradation in Amazon by shifting cattle production to agricultural frontier regions, where it increase deforestation.
... This is because the spatial determinants predominantly shape the location of change and its spatial patterns but are less decisive for the levels of land-use intensity in particular locations (Meyfroidt, 2016). Better access to physical capital and economic infrastructure that reduce communication and transportation costs has been associated to higher regional-level deforestation and cultivation in this and other agricultural frontiers (Godar et al., 2012). Our analysis, however, did not detect a strong influence of accessibility to roads and towns on farm-level gross revenues. ...
... Commodity prices (e.g. soy and beef), exchange rate of Brazil's currency, distance-to-roads, infrastructure projects and migration processes have been linked to deforestation (Fearnside, 2017;Godar et al., 2012;Lapola et al., 2013). Deforestation and land degradation in the Amazon have been associated with the expansion of the agriculture frontier, with concentration of deforestation in hotspots forming a dynamic 'Arc of Deforestation' along the eastern and southern edges of the forest (Becker, 2016;Hecht, 2012). ...
The Government of Indonesia has committed to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. However, the country suffers from one of the most significant illegal logging and illegal land clearing conditions in the world. Brazil was in a similar condition to Indonesia when it implemented an aggressive and strategic forest law enforcement policy which enable it to significantly reduce deforestation. Indonesia does not have such a strategic approach to forest law enforcement. It should consider the features of Brazil’s strategy in order to improve its forest law enforcement activities in order to be able to deliver on the reduction of forest emissions
that it has pledged in Nationally Determined Contributions statement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Indonesia’s efforts, and those of other countries, would be enhanced by research on the reasons at the root of the unsuccessful forest law enforcement policies and activities over the two decades since the spotlight was put on illegal logging at the first Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade conference held in Bali in 2001.
The impact of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia is a global concern, and land occupation in public lands contributes to increased deforestation rates. Little is known about the spread of deforestation in landholdings in undesignated public lands located on cattle-ranching frontiers. We use a case of Matupi District, a hotspot of deforestation along the Transamazon Highway in the southern portion of Brazil’s state of Amazonas, where spontaneous squatters and land grabbers are the main actors occupying landholdings. We assessed the advance of deforestation and the spatial distribution of landholdings in relation to the main road and to land categories (e.g., protected areas and undesignated public land). Landholdings up to 400 ha were the majority in numbers (52%) and larger landholdings (> 400 ha) were located farther into the forest, contributing to expanding the deforestation frontier. By 2018, 80% of the remaining forest was in larger landholdings (> 400 ha), increasing the susceptibility of this forest to being cleared in the coming years. Thus, greater attention should be given to these larger landholdings to control the spread of deforestation. By analyzing the clearing pattern in the landholdings, deforestation monitoring can focus on specific sizes of landholdings that contribute most to the advance of the deforestation frontier. Brazil’s current trend to facilitating the legalization of illegal claims in undesignated public lands, such as the large and medium landholdings we studied, implies vast areas of future deforestation and should be reversed.
Understanding the history of deforestation in the Amazon is essential to predict the future of this process under different scenarios and to identify effective measures for its control, avoiding the worst impacts. Controlling deforestation is crucial to preventing the impacts of forest loss today much of the deforestation process is beyond the government's control. This study aims to analyze the occurrence of deforestation in the last ten years, especially in the last year (2018-2019) between the cities of Boa vista and Brasília. The study area covers the 5 Km radius around the Boa Vista (RR) - Manaus (AM) - Brasília (DF) airway/airliner. For the analysis of deforestation the PRODES and MapBiomas database was used for that year from 2008 to 2019 and for this year from 2008 to 2018. Thus it was possible to compare the results of the deforestation of PRODES and MapBiomas, in each state and year from area and percentage of deforestation. It was noticed through the deforestation data for the period from 2008 to 2019 that the state with the largest deforested area was Pará and in second place Mato Grosso. This is due both to the fact that the airway has the largest extensions to these two states and because they are increasing activities related to agribusiness, mainly soy and livestock in the regions studied. In addition, there was a significant decrease in deforestation in the period from 2008 to 2017 in the study region, but as of 2018 this deforestation started to grow again. Thus, the knowledge of tools such as those used in the study is essential for planning public policies that are more appropriate and directed to the Amazon.
Entender a história do desmatamento na Amazônia é essencial para prever o futuro desse processo sob diferentes cenários e identificar medidas eficazes para seu controle, evitando os piores impactos. O controle do desmatamento é crucial para prevenir os impactos da perda de floresta atualmente grande parte do processo de desmatamento está fora de controle do governo. O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar a ocorrência de desmatamento e nos últimos dez anos, em especial no último ano (2018-2019) entre as cidades de Boa vista e Brasília. A área de estudo abrange o raio de 5 Km no entorno da aerovia/aerolinha Boa Vista (RR) – Manaus (AM) – Brasília (DF). Para a análise do desmatamento foi utilizado o banco de dados do PRODES e MapBiomas para aquele os anos de 2008 a 2019 e para este os anos de 2008 a 2018. Assim foi possível comparar os resultados do desflorestamento do PRODES e do MapBiomas, em cada estado e ano a partir da área e porcentagem de desmatamento. Percebeu-se por meio dos dados de desmatamento para o período de 2008 a 2019 que o estado que apresentou maior área desmatada foi o Pará e em segundo lugar o Mato Grosso. Isso se deve tanto por a aerovia ter as maiores extensões para esses dois estados como por eles estarem aumentando as atividades ligadas ao agronegócio, principalmente, da soja e pecuária nas regiões estudadas. Além disso, constatou-se uma diminuição significativa no desmatamento no período de 2008 a 2017 na região de estudo, porém a partir de 2018 esse desmatamento voltou a crescer. Dessa forma, o conhecimento de ferramentas como as utilizadas no estudo é fundamental para o planejamento de políticas públicas mais adequadas e direcionadas para a Amazônia.
With the expansion of livestock in the Amazon region, a high percentage of pasture areas are degraded and unproductive. Novel strategies are needed, including the use of native tree species, to simultaneously achieve economic and ecosystem benefits. This study aimed at assessing the effects of five multipurpose native tree species on soil fertility and forage quality of Urochloa brizantha pastures in the southern Amazon. Soil and forage samples were collected under the crown and adjacent to 25 isolated trees belonging to five species during a dry and a rainy season. The presence of native trees positively affected the level of potassium, calcium and manganese in the soil, as well as the mineral matter and crude protein of the forage, especially in the dry season, suggesting a protective effect against the seasonal drought. The tree species had variable effects on soil fertility and forage quality. Soil under Apeiba tibourbou had higher potassium levels, while the forage under Handroanthus serratifolius had higher protein and fiber content. Our results indicate that it is important to diversify silvopastoral systems in the Amazon through the use of native tree species, contributing to the design of novel silvopastoral strategies in the region. Common multipurpose tree species with widespread natural distribution could be used as a complementary aspect of pasture management to provide a protective effect against drought, contribute to enhanced nutrient cycling and even increase forage quality.
THE CHANGES OF LAND COVER IN THE WATERSHED UNDER PRESSURE OF THE SYSTEMS USE AND OCCUPATION OF THE TERRITORY IN THE EASTERN AMAZONLOS CAMBIOS DE COBERTURA DE LA TIERRA EM CUENCA HIDROGRÁFICA BAJO PRESIÓN DE LOS SISTEMAS DE USO Y OCUPACIÓN DEL TERRITÓRIO EM LA AMAZONIA ORIENTALRESUMOA intensificação das mudanças do uso e cobertura da terra, principalmente no que tange à conversão de áreas florestais ao processo produtivo, pode acarretar uma série de impactos ambientais que acabam por modificar a funcionalidade da paisagem. A compreensão da dinâmica do uso e cobertura da terra possibilita traçar políticas de normatização de acordo com as características locais, visando a preservação e conservação dos recursos naturais. Dessa forma, o presente trabalho objetivou analisar as mudanças do uso e cobertura da terra na bacia hidrográfica do rio Acará, Amazônia Oriental, entre os anos de 2004, 2010 e 2014, com intuito de indicar possíveis consequências ambientais que tais mudanças podem ocasionar na paisagem da bacia. Para isso, levantaram-se bibliografias sobre a temática na região Amazônica, bem como o levantamento de dados cartográficos para a confecção das cartas de uso e cobertura. Os resultados apontam que a adoção de políticas públicas influenciou a dinâmica do uso e cobertura da terra da bacia do rio Acará, o que significou em menores taxas de desflorestamento e, ao mesmo tempo, a expansão substancial do monocultivo de dendê, que acabou por ultrapassar áreas degradadas, e incorporando áreas florestais ao processo produtivo, causando, assim, impactos ambientais. Portanto, concluiu-se que há necessidade de intensificar às ações de combate ao processo de desflorestamento e readequar políticas públicas e elaborar outras de acordo com as características ambientais. Isso contribuirá para a recuperação de sistemas ambientais degradados, bem como a preservação de áreas ambientalmente sensíveis e a conservação dos recursos naturais através de atividades econômicas ambientalmente sustentáveis.Palavras-chave: Uso e Cobertura da Terra; Impactos Ambientais; Rio Acará. ABSTRACTThe intensification of changes in land use/cover, especially in relation to the conversion of forest areas to the productive process, can lead to a series of environmental impacts that end up modifying the landscape's functionality. Understanding the dynamics of land use/cover makes it possible to draw up standardization policies according to local characteristics, aiming at the preservation and conservation of natural resources. The objective of this study was to analyze changes in land use/cover in the Acará river basin, Eastern Amazonia, between 2004, 2010 and 2014, in order to indicate possible environmental consequences that such changes may cause in the landscape of the basin. For this, bibliographies on this subject were collected in the Amazon region, as well as the collection of cartographic data for the construction of maps of use and coverage. The results indicate that the adoption of public policies influenced the dynamics of the land use/cover of the Acará river basin, which resulted in lower rates of deforestation and, at the same time, in the substantial expansion of oil palm monoculture, which eventually surpassed degraded areas, incorporating forest areas into the production process, causing environmental impacts. Therefore, it is concluded that there is a need to intensify actions to combat the deforestation process, to reform public policies and to elaborate other policies according to environmental characteristics, thus contributing to the recovery of degraded environmental systems, as well as to the conservation of environmentally sensitive areas, promoting the conservation of natural resources through environmentally sustainable economic activities.Keywords: Land Use/Cover; Environmental Impacts; Acará River.RESUMÉNLa intensificación de los cambios del uso y cobertura de la tierra, principalmente en lo que se refiere a la conversión de áreas forestales al proceso productivo puede acarrear una serie de impactos ambientales, que acaban por modificar la funcionalidad del paisaje. La comprensión de la dinámica del uso y cobertura de la tierra posibilita trazar políticas de normalización de acuerdo con las características locales, con el fin de preservar y conservar los recursos naturales. De esta forma, el presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar los cambios del uso y cobertura de la tierra en la cuenca hidrográfica del río Acará en la Amazonia Oriental, entre los años 2004, 2010 y 2014, con el fin de indicar posibles consecuencias ambientales, cuyos cambios pueden ocasionar en el paisaje de la cuenca. Para ello, se trabajó con bibliografías sobre la temática en la región Amazónica, así como el levantamiento de datos cartográficos para la confección de las cartas de uso y cobertura. Los resultados apuntan que la adopción de políticas públicas influenció la dinámica del uso y cobertura de la tierra de la cuenca del río Acará, lo que significó menores tasas de deforestación y al mismo tiempo, la expansión sustancial del monocultivo de palma aceitera, que acabó por sobrepasar a las áreas degradadas e incorporando áreas forestales al proceso productivo, causando impactos ambientales. Por lo tanto, se concluye que hay necesidad de intensificar las acciones de combate al proceso de deforestación y readecuar las políticas públicas, elaborando otras de acuerdo con las características ambientales, contribuyendo así a la recuperación de sistemas ambientales degradados, así como la preservación de áreas ambientalmente sensibles y fomentando la conservación de los recursos naturales a través de actividades económicas ambientalmente sostenibles.Palabras-clave: Uso y Cobertura de la Tierra; Impactos ambientales; Río Acará.
This chapter aims to show how ‘development’ policies, promoted and/or endorsed by different spheres of Brazilian government (federal, state and municipal) have contributed to the occurrence of malaria in parts of the Amazon. A detailed case study is provided, analysing the city of Mâncio Lima, in the Acre state. In this locality, a state policy in the early 2000s encouraged fish farming through opening fish ponds. The initiative, however, eventually led to massive production of breeding sites for the mosquito Anopheles darlingi, which transmits malaria in the Brazilian Amazon. As a consequence, malaria transmission has exploded in the municipality, which currently has the largest number of cases per inhabitant in Brazil. This investigation uses literature review and secondary data, as well as fieldwork records from September 2019. A set of proposed interventions are presented to address the malaria problem in the locality. Finally, we conduct an analysis of the case in the context of recent development/post-development theories. We argue that any intervention in the area must consider social participation, environmental preservation and defence against the main local health risks, especially malaria.
The Pampa biome within Brazil is one of South America’s most endangered biomes, due to conversion to croplands and use for cattle farming, with very limited coverage by protected areas. We investigated the impacts of (i) human population density, (ii) grassland and (iii) forest cover, (iv) protected areas and (v) mean size of farms on the occurrence patterns of 18 medium‐sized mammal species. We gathered information on the occurrence of these species between 2001 and 2010 from the literature and using unpublished field data from local experts. We obtained 1066 records, varying between 13 and 101 per species. Grassland cover had consistently positive effects on species richness (considering the 18 analyzed species), endangered species (considering 10 species that are endangered or data deficient) and occurrence of five individual species (considering each species separately). Human population density, forest cover and mean size of farms had diverse effects on individual species; however, both forest cover and human population density had positive effects on species richness and endangered species occurrence. For human population density this may result from areas suitable for people being similar to those suitable for many native species. The protected area network of the Pampa biome appeared ineffective at protecting the focal species, with predominantly negative effects on mammal occurrence. This inefficiency is probably related to its minor coverage; only 2.9% of the biome area is under any level of protection and only 0.4% under strict protection. To guarantee the conservation of mammal species in this threatened biome, it is important to protect the last remnants of native vegetation, mainly grasslands, avoiding their conversion into croplands. The Pampa biome within Brazil is one of South America’s most endangered biomes, due to conversion to croplands and use for cattle farming, with very limited coverage by protected areas. We investigated the impacts of (i) human population density, (ii) grassland and (iii) forest cover, (iv) protected areas and (v) mean size of farms on the occurrence patterns of 18 medium‐sized mammal species in the Pampa biome. We found that human population density, forest cover and mean size of farms had diverse effects on individual species; however both forest cover and human population density had positive effects on species richness and endangered species occurrence. The protected area network of the Pampa biome appeared ineffective at protecting the focal species, with predominantly negative effects on mammal occurrence. To guarantee the conservation of mammal species in this threatened biome, it is important to protect the last remnants of native vegetation, mainly grasslands, avoiding their conversion into croplands.
Brazil's Amazon deforestation is a major global and national environmental concern, and the ability to model and project both its course and the effect of different policy options depends on understanding how this process occurs at present and how it might change in the future. The present paper addresses one key factor in Amazon deforestation: land-tenure concentration in settlements. Brazil's policies for establishing and regulating settlement projects represent critical government decisions shaping the landscape in the 5 × 106 km2 Legal Amazonia region. We used remote-sensing data and information provided by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) to evaluate the effect of land-tenure concentration in a settlement project (Projeto de Assentamento) located in a frontier area where cattle-ranching is expanding. We identified the actors and their deforestation patterns in the Matupi settlement in the southern part of Brazil's state of Amazonas. We spatially identified actors who concentrated "lots" (the parcels of land distributed to individual settlers) in 2011 and assessed whether the concentration was done by individual landholders or by "families" (where members merged their lots and the clearing was done together). Deforestation rates (1995-2011) were estimated for each type of actor and the trajectory of deforestation in the settlement (cumulative deforestation to 1994 and annual deforestation 1995-2016) was also analyzed. Concentrators occupied 28% (9653 ha) of the settlement and 29% of the lots (152 lots) analyzed; the numbers of lots concentrated ranged from two to ten. Concentrators of two lots and non-concentrators were the predominant actor types in the settlement. The mean annual clearing per landholding for concentrators of two lots (families: 4.1 ± 2.8 ha (mean ± SD); individuals: 5.1 ± 4.6 ha) was greater than for non-concentrators (1.7 ± 1.2 ha), despite their having similar patterns of small clearings. Concentrators of three or more lots had mean annual clearing per landholding between 6.2 ± 12.2 ha and 23.9 ± 38.7 ha and, the pattern of patches cleared per year >34 ha in area was predominant. The deforestation rate per lot was higher among concentrators as compared to non-concentrators, showing that lot concentration speeds deforestation. Analysis of deforestation patterns helps to better understand the process of lot concentration by spatially identifying the predominant patterns of each type of actor. The approach used in our study could assist authorities in identifying and monitoring land-tenure concentration in settlements. Agrarian-reform policymakers need to monitor this process, since it speeds deforestation in Amazonian settlement projects, as well as undermining the social objectives of the agrarian-reform program.
Em contextos de ambientalização de conflitos sociais na Amazônia, a roça permanece a duras penas co- mo símbolo vivo e prática tradicional, constituinte de identidade e territórios, de campesinatos que resistem ao autoritarismo da vigilância e do controle ambiental do Estado. Em áreas de reforma agrária sob cobertura florestal na chamada Transamazônica, como no emblemático caso do Programa de Desenvolvimento Sustentável (PDS) Virola-Jatobá no município de Anapu/PA, enquanto vigia-se e se controla a prática da roça, o manejo florestal comunitário e os sistemas agroflorestais são alternativas legalmente permitidas para conciliar desenvolvimento rural e conservação ambiental. Esta pesquisa-ação interdisciplinar identifica e discute distintas interpretações sobre impactos de políticas públicas ambientais vinculadas à vigilância e controle do desmatamento nesse PDS. Evidenciam-se extremos diferenciais nas relações de poder, que demandam transformações não apenas de ordem técnica ou jurídica, mas sobretudo política. Conclui-se que, na relação desse campesinato com a sociedade e o Estado, em meio à proliferação de normativas ambientais e crescente vigilância e controle, são necessárias novas competências aos atores enfocados pela pesquisa. Essas competências incluem processos de territorialização na transformação dos sistemas de produção, em que se vislumbra uma aproximação entre a roça e o manejo florestal comunitário.
The Amazon rain forest experiences the combined pressures from human-made
deforestation and progressing climate change, causing severe and potentially
disruptive perturbations of the ecosystem's integrity and stability. To
intensify research on critical aspects of Amazonian biosphere–atmosphere
exchange, the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) has been established in
the central Amazon Basin. Here we present a multi-year analysis of backward
trajectories to derive an effective footprint region of the observatory,
which spans large parts of the particularly vulnerable eastern basin.
Further, we characterize geospatial properties of the footprint regions,
such as climatic conditions, distribution of ecoregions, land cover
categories, deforestation dynamics, agricultural expansion, fire regimes,
infrastructural development, protected areas, and future
deforestation scenarios. This study is meant to be a resource and reference
work, helping to embed the ATTO observations into the larger context of
human-caused transformations of Amazonia. We conclude that the chances to
observe an unperturbed rain forest–atmosphere exchange at the ATTO site will likely decrease
in the future, whereas the atmospheric signals from human-made and climate-change-related forest perturbations will increase in frequency and
intensity.
Over the 1978-1988 period in Brazilian Amazonia, forest was lost at a rate of 22 000 km2 yr-1 for 1989-1990 and 11 000 km2 yr-1 for 1990-1991. The reduction in the rate since 1987 has mostly been due to Brazil's economic recession rather than to any policy changes. The number of properties censused in each size class explains 74% of the variation in deforestation rate among the nine Amazonian states. Multiple regressions indicate that 30% of the clearing in 1991 can be attributed to small farmers, and the remaining 70% to either medium or large ranchers. The social cost of reducing deforestation rates would therefore be much less than is implied by frequent pronouncements that blame "poverty' for environmental problems in the region. -Author
Tropical deforestation remains a critical issue given its present rate and a widespread consensus regarding its implications for the global carbon cycle and biodiversity. Nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in the Amazon basin, home to the world’s largest intact, tropical forest. This article addresses land cover change processes at household level in the Amazon basin, and to this end adapts a concept of domestic life cycle to the current institutional environment of tropical frontiers. In particular, it poses a risk minimization model that integrates demography with market-based factors such as transportation costs and accessibility. In essence, the article merges the theory of Chayanov with the household economy framework, in which markets exist for inputs (including labor), outputs, and capital. The risk model is specified and estimated, using survey data for 261 small producers along the Transamazon Highway in the eastern sector of the Brazilian Amazon.
This study develops criteria for classifying the actor groups shaping frontier development along the Transamazon Highway colonization project in the Brazilian Amazon, as a basis to improve understanding of their specific contributions to environmental degradation and socio-economic development. Based on an analysis of responses to questionnaires by 93 colonists representing different migration trajectories, production systems, socio-economic strategies and deforestation patterns, actor groups could be statistically classified according to their type of production and level of capitalization. A property size threshold discriminating small and largeholders in the study area is presented and compared with previous attempts to establish such a threshold. Largeholders practicing large-scale cattle ranching and smallholders practicing diversified family agriculture were found to be the two predominant colonist types. Smallholder farming practices were found to be more appropriate to the local environmental conditions than those implemented by cattle ranchers.
Containing the advance of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia requires understanding the roles and movements of the actors involved. The importance of different actors varies widely among locations within the region, and also evolves at any particular site over the course of frontier establishment and consolidation. Landless migrants have significant roles in clearing the land they occupy and in motivating landholders to clear as a defense against invasion or expropriation. Colonists in official settlements and other small farmers also are responsible for substantial amounts of clearing, but ranchers constitute the largest component of the region's clearing. This group is most responsive to macroeconomic changes affecting such factors as commodity prices, and also receives substantial subsidies. Ulterior motives, such as land speculation and money laundering, also affect this group. Drug trafficking and money laundering represent strong forces in some areas and help spread deforestation where it would be unprofitable based only on the legitimate economy. Goldminers increase the population in distant areas and subsequently enter the ranks of other groups. Work as laborers or debt slaves provides an important entry to the region for poor migrants from northeast Brazil, providing cheap labor to large ranches and a large source of entrants to other groups, such as landless farmers and colonists. Capitalized farmers, including agribusiness for soy production, have tremendous impact in certain areas, such as Mato Grosso. This group responds to commodity markets and provides justification for major infrastructure projects. Landgrabbers, or grileiros, are important in entering public land and beginning the process of deforestation and transfer of land to subsequent groups of actors. These include sawmill owners and loggers, who play an important role in generating funds for clearing by other groups, ranging from landless migrants to large ranchers. They also build endogenous roads, facilitating the entry of other actors. Future movements of actors will be influenced by major infrastructure plans, such as those for hydroelectric dams. Policies for reducing deforestation must include removing motives for deforestation by stopping the practice of regularizing land claims and by cutting subsidies. The rule of law must be established throughout the region by completing the cadaster, or register, of land titles and by reinforcing command and control. Movement to the frontier needs to be discouraged by exercising restraint in approving infrastructure such as highways, and by creating and protecting conservation units. Economic alternatives to deforestation should be fostered by generating employment in source areas and in alternative migration destinations, by supporting sustainable uses of forest, by supporting alternative supply of domestic markets for products such as timber, and by rewarding the environmental services of standing forest.
Summary This paper examines the interactions between state-led land reform, agrarian structures, and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Land reform tends to promote land redistribution through regularization of smallholder land invasions of large-scale landholdings, and by redistribution of public lands to smallholders in existing colonization frontiers. The implications of state-led land reform on deforestation are heterogeneous. I argue that impacts of agrarian reform are strongly related to the pre-existing social and economic configuration of the frontiers where it takes place. While it leads to lower rates of deforestation in landscapes dominated by smallholders with diversified land use, its impact on forest conversion is higher in landscapes where extensive land use, mainly prompted by large-scale cattle ranching, tends to dominate. I provide an assessment for the whole Brazilian Amazon, and examine two research sites in the state of Pará, namely Uruará and Redenção. The study is based on informant interviews, secondary information, agricultural census data, and remote sensing data.
Rain forest fragments in central Amazonia were found to experience a dramatic loss of above-ground tree biomass that is not
offset by recruitment of new trees. These losses were largest within 100 meters of fragment edges, where tree mortality is
sharply increased by microclimatic changes and elevated wind turbulence. Permanent study plots within 100 meters of edges
lost up to 36 percent of their biomass in the first 10 to 17 years after fragmentation. Lianas (climbing woody vines) increased
near edges but usually compensated for only a small fraction of the biomass lost as a result of increased tree mortality.
This article deploys the "Theater of Cruelty," articulated by the French surrealist Antonin Artaud, as a conceptual heuristic to explicate the empirical world of contemporary Amazonia, in particular the " South of Para," a site of land war and forest destruction, which the Theater of Cruelty posits as a single dramatic event. We pursue this explication via direct physical immersion, in the form of a travelogue following State Road PA-150 from Maraba to Eldorado dos Carajas, the scene of a massacre of nineteen land reform activists, shot down by Brazilian military police in collusion with the landed elite in 1996. Along the way, we have occasion to encounter the land reform movements and the forces of repression, which we depict both descriptively and theoretically, using our field trip as a point of departure for philosophical elaboration. To this end, we activate Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty" to disclose the nature of violent conflict in the region. We suggest that theater, more generally, provides structure for cruel performance, and that violent land conflict, together with forest destruction, constitutes a predictable tragedy of theatrical events. In other words, violent land conflict in Amazonia, with all its terrible implications for people and environment, can be grasped as a theatrical structure, with philosophic and material consequences for mind and body. Thus, we articulate the development discourse of Amazonia as a violent, existential game, not a narrative of disembodied forces.
Brazil's Amazon forest remained largely intact until the "modern" era of deforestation began with the inauguration of the Transamazon Highway in 1970. Amazonian deforestation rates have trended upward since 1991, with clearing proceeding at a variable but rapid pace. Although Amazonian forests are cut for various reasons, cattle ranching predominates. The large and medium-sized ranches account for about 70% of clearing activity. Profit from beef cattle is only one of the income sources that make deforestation profitable. Forest degradation results from logging, ground fires (facilitated by logging), and the effects of fragmentation and edge formation. Degradation contributes to forest loss. The impacts of deforestation include loss of biodiversity, reduced water cycling (and rainfall), and contributions to global warming. Strategies to slow deforestation include repression through licensing procedures, monitoring, and fines. The severity of penalties for deforestation needs to be sufficient to deter illegal clearing but not so great as to be unenforceable. Policy reform is also needed to address root causes of deforestation, including the role of clearing in establishing land claims.
Tropical deforestation is a significant driver of global environmental change, given its impacts on the carbon cycle and biodiversity. Loss of the Amazon forest, the focus of this article, is of particular concern because of the size and the rapid rate at which the forest is being converted to agricultural use. In this article, we identify what has been the most important driver of deforestation in a specific colonization frontier in the Brazilian Amazon. To this end, we consider (1) the land-use dynamics of smallholder households, (2) the formation of pasture by large-scale ranchers, and (3) structural processes of land aggregation by ranchers. Much has been written about relations between smallholders and ranchers in the Brazilian Amazon, particularly those involving conflict over land, and this article explicates the implications of such social processes for land cover. Toward this end, we draw on panel data (1996–2002) and satellite imagery (1986–1999) to show the deforestation that is attributable to small- and largeholders, and the deforestation that is attributable to aggregations of property arising from a process that we refer to as frontier stratification. Evidently, most of the recent deforestation in the study area has resulted from the household processes of smallholders, not from conversions to pasture pursuant to the appropriations of smallholders' property by well-capitalized ranchers or speculators.
Since the 1970s the Brazilian Amazon has received over 1 million migrant farm households from other regions of the country, many of whom were attracted to government-sponsored frontier settlement programs that offered free tropical forest land. As a result, pressures on tropical forests have intensified along several settlement corridors throughout the region. Despite their importance as agents of landscape change, surprisingly little is known about the land use practices of these farmers. This paper briefly reviews the research literature on smallholder land use patterns in Amazonia, describes the recent history of one important agricultural land settlement program in the western Brazilian Amazon state of Rondnia, and, based on 240 household surveys conducted in three separate settlement locations in the state, highlights key differences in land use patterns among the rural population. Typologies of farming systems are presented on the basis of cluster analysis of land use data and ANOVA tests. The findings indicate considerable complexity and heterogeneity in smallholder farming systems. Spatial variations in farming system types may be due to geographic differences in soil regimes, the social histories of specific communities, and site-specific responses to exogenous variables.
In this paper, I examine patterns of wealth accumulation and their influence on deforestation among smallholders at Uruará
and Redenção, in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon. I argue that the development of the smallholder economy
has not been a linear process, and the diversity of smallholder farming systems and their patterns of wealth accumulation
have varied implications for the rate and magnitude of deforestation. However, whilst there are differential impacts of farming
practices on deforestation—cattle ranching has a greater impact than cash cropping or subsistence agriculture—the stronger
correlate of deforestation is the wealth of the farmers. Wealthier farmers not only tend to deforest more in absolute terms,
but also show a slightly greater propensity to deforest whatever their production system. Though cattle production is a key
driver of wealth accumulation and thus deforestation, a significant number of smallholders adopt diversified production systems.
The main factors explaining the relationship between the farming systems and deforestation were years of residence on the
lot, distance of the lot to main market and the amount of day labor hired—and not variables describing household structure.
The radiometric normalization of multitemporal satellite optical images of the same terrain is often necessary for land cover change detection, e.g., relative differences. In previous studies, ground reference data or pseudo-invariant features (PIFs) were used in the radiometric rectification of multitemporal images. Ground reference data are costly and difficult to acquire for most satellite remotely sensed images and the selection of PIFs is generally subjective. In addition, previous research has been focused on radiometric normalization of two images acquired on different dates. The problem of conservation of radiometric resolution in the case of radiometric normalization between more than two images has not been addressed. This article reports on a new procedure for radiometric normalization between multitemporal images of the same area. The selection of PIFs is done statistically. With quality control, principal component analysis (PCA) is used to find linear relationships between multitemporal images of the same area. The satellite images are normalized radiometrically to a common scale tied to the reference radiometric levels. The procedure ensures the conservation of radiometric resolution for the multitemporal images involved. The new procedure is applied to three Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images from three different years (August 1986, 1987, and 1991) and of the same area. Quality control measures show that the error in radiometric consistency between the multitemporal images is reduced effectively. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is calculated using the radiometrically normalized multitemporal imagery and assessed in the context of land cover change analysis.
This paper decomposes recent deforestation in four study areas in the Brazilian Amazon into components associated with large ranches and small producers. It then assesses in an inferential framework small producer deforestation with respect to the proximate causes of their farming systems, and the household drivers of their farming system choices. It is shown that, for areas with substantial in-migration of small producers, forest clearance at the household level is mainly attributable to the availability of hired labor, and not to household labor force or the physical capital at their disposal. The paper conducts the inferential analysis of small producer deforestation using measures of forest clearance taken from satellite image classification and directly from field surveys. A substantial discrepancy in the measures is identified, which has implications for household level research on land cover change.
Concern about the future of Amazonian forests is growing as both the extent and rate of primary forest destruction increase. We combine spatial information on various biophysical, demographic and infrastructural factors in the Brazilian Amazon with satellite data on deforestation to evaluate the relative importance of each factor to deforestation in the region. We assess the sensitivity of results to alternative sampling methodologies, and compare our results to those of previous empirical studies of Amazonian deforestation. Our findings, in concert with those of previous studies, send a clear message to planners: both paved and unpaved roads are key drivers of the deforestation process. Proximity to previous clearings, high population densities, low annual rainfall, and long dry seasons also increase the likelihood that a site will be deforested; however, roads are consistently important and are the factors most amenable to policymaking. We argue that there is ample evidence to justify a fundamental change in current Amazonian development priorities if additional large-scale losses of forests and environmental services are to be avoided.
We documented the history of land-use change and migration in eastern Bolivia in five temporal periods: pre-1976, 1976-1986, 1986-1991, 1991-2001, and 2001-2004. We included all land-cover types located below the natural montane tree line (∼3000 m), including forest, savanna, scrubland, seasonal wetland, second-growth forest, pasture, and cropland. The rate of land-use change has increased from approximately 4.7 × 104 ha/yr in the 1960s to > 2.9 × 105 ha/yr in the most recent period: Land-use change was quantified for 10 groups within which cultural traditions and production systems are shared, including three nonmechanized indigenous groups, four mechanized farming groups, two cattle ranching groups, and the forest products sector. Mechanized Cruceño farmers and Andean indigenous colonists were responsible for most land-use change in the 1960s and 1970s; deforestation by the latter group increased to twice that by all other groups during 1986-1991, declined in the 1990s, and then increased again in the most recent period. In the last 15 years, land-use change by agro-industrialists specializing in soybean has become important, and cattle ranching based on cultivated pastores has surpassed land use by all other groups. When the rates of change increased for the three indigenous nonmechanized groups, they tended to decrease for the four nonindigenous mechanized groups, and vice versa.
The worldwide concern with deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia is motivated not only by the irreversible loss of this natural wealth, but also by the perception that it is a destructive process in which the social and economic gains are smaller than the environmental losses. This perception also underlies the diagnosis, formulation and evaluation of public policies proposed by government and non-governmental organizations working in the region, including the World Bank. The present work suggests that a fuller understanding is necessary with regard to the motivations and identity of the agents responsible for deforestation, the evaluation of the social and economic benefits from the process and the resulting implications of public policies for the region. The objective of the report is to show that, in contrast to the 1970s and 1980s when occupation of Brazilian Amazonia was largely induced by government policies and subsidies, recent deforestation in significant parts of the region is basically caused by medium- and large-scale cattle ranching. Following a private rationale, the dynamics of the occupation process gradually became autonomous, as is suggested by the significant increase in deforestation in the 1990s despite the substantial reduction of subsidies and incentives by government. Among the causes of the transformation are technological and managerial changes and the adaptation of cattle ranching to the geo-ecological conditions of eastern Amazonia which allowed for productivity gains and cost reductions. The fact that cattle ranching is viable from the private perspective does not mean that the activity is socially desirable or environmentally sustainable. Private gain needs to be contrasted with the environmental (social) costs associated with cattle ranching and deforestation. From the social perspective, it is legitimate to argue that the private benefits from large-scale cattle ranching are largely exclusive, having contributed little to alleviate social and economic inequalities. The study notes, however, that decreases in the price of beef in national markets and increases in exports caused by the expansion of cattle ranching in Eastern Amazonia may imply social benefits that go beyond sectoral and regional boundaries. From an environmental perspective, despite the uncertainties of valuation, the limited evidence available suggests that the costs of deforestation may be extremely high and possibly exceed private benefits from cattle ranching, particularly when the uncertainties of irreversible losses of genetic heritage (not yet fully understood) are incorporated. In this respect, activities such as sustainable forest management should be considered environmentally and socially superior. However, new policy instruments, funding mechanisms and monitoring and enforcement structures (that are difficult to implement) will be needed to make sustainable forest management a feasible alternative and to make ranchers internalize the environmental costs of their activities. The key policy recommendations of the study are: (i) to acknowledge the private logic of the present occupation process of Brazilian Amazonia; (ii) to change the focus of policies towards cattle ranchers as the key driving force of deforestation, recognizing their interests and private economic gains; (iii) given the lack of knowledge about environmental costs and the uncertainties associated with the irreversiblity of present decisions, to formulate policies aimed at halting further expansion of the frontier in those areas which are still unaffected and encourage intensification of agriculture and cattle ranching in areas undergoing consolidation. This study aims to stimulate and provide inputs to the debate on these themes, particularly between the government and the main agents of deforestation identified here (especially medium and large ranchers).
This report describes a program, FRAGSTATS, developed to quantify landscape structure. Two separate versions of FRAGSTATS exist: one for vector images and one for raster images. In this report, each metric calculated by GRAGSTATS is described in terms of its ecological application and limitations. Example landscapes are included, and a discussion is provided of each metric as it relates to the sample landscapes. -from Authors
Analysis of remotely sensed data at the level of individual farm properties provides additional insights to those derived from a landscape approach. Property-level analysis was carried out by overlaying a property boundary grid in a GIS. Data were derived from aerial photographs for 1970 and 1978 and Landsat Thematic Mapper images for 1985, 1988, and 1991. The study area contains approximately 3,800 properties, but this paper is based on a subset of 398 properties in the Brazilian Amazon. Analysis at the property level found pat- terns of land-cover classes that reflect differences in farming strategies of households. Data analysis at the household level was useful in explaining apparent mature forest to advanced secondaly succession degradation in three years, not readily apparent from landscape analysis of remotely sensed data. The change was due to property-specific selective logging and the spread of fire from pastures into the adjacent forest.
Patterns due to clearance and cultivation in the tropical rain forest are analysed and interpreted using high resolution remote sensing data. Within a wide variety of pattern indices, some are selected on statistical criteria to enable a cross-site comparison over di Verent sites around the tropical belt and to monitor the landscape dynamics on one of them. The in-site variability of these indices is analysed to identify several landscape patterns of distinct land uses and to stratify the image on di Verent landscape patterns. A cross site comparison reveals high diVerences ofdeforestation patterns between sites in terms of landscape coné gura- tion and complexity, of distribution and isolation of patches, and of degree of fragmentation. And the monitoring of landscape dynamic on a Brazilian site shows tremendous changes over the last 25 years and landscape pattern indices help to identify trends and quantify landscape changes:percentage forest decreases with forest cover,while Matheron index increases with fragmentation oflandscape and fractal index increases with complexity of landscape pattern. Thus landscape pattern indices provide useful quantié cation to better analyse in-site variability, cross site comparison and changes over time.
This article highlights how deforestation is not only linked to economic processes within the Amazon, but also to economic forces in the rest of Brazil. In light of recent trends in Brazil's agricultural production inside and outside the Amazon, this article maintains that the growing importance of beef production in the Amazon relative to the rest of Brazil is likely to lead to further increases in deforestation. From 1991 to 2001 the Amazon's share of the Brazilian bovine herd increased from 15% to 25%—an average change of 1% per year. With the Brazilian herd size in 2003 estimated at 196 million head of cattle, the current rate of increase implies an increase of 1.96 million cattle per year in the Amazon. At Brazil's average stocking rate of 1.1 head of cattle per hectare, it means that an additional 18,000 km of land are needed each year in the Amazon to account for this expansion. However, Brazil has abundant agricultural land outside the Amazon to meet increases in demand for beef. The difficulty lies in the comparative advantage of these other areas in producing soy and grains as opposed to livestock. I conclude that targeting resources toward specific agricultural development opportunities outside the Amazon—especially grain-fed beef— would be an effective way to reduce incentives to clear land in the Amazon.