Environmental impact of the Brazilian Agrarian Reform process from 1985 to 2001

Abstract

During the past 20 years, most settlements of the Brazilian Agrarian Reform (AR) have been established in or near better-preserved natural ecosystems, where environmental impact is likely to be negative and contribute to natural resources degradation. The objective of this work is providing a first, comprehensive insight of the impacts related to the environmental quality of these settlements, based on the primary survey of 4,340 AR settlements installed between 1985 and 2001. An index was calculated to integrate different aspects of environmental impacts in one single number. The index showed significant regional variation, with lower values (low environmental quality) for the North

Food sovereignty: an alternative paradigm for poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation in Latin America

“…In an attempt to examine the potential trade-offs between food production, poverty alleviation and environmental degradation, Sparovek et al 195, 198 conducted a comprehensive study of 4,340 settlements, comprised of 458,000 families, which were created through government-sponsored land redistribution between 1985 and 2001. These land reform settlements demonstrated significant regional variation in environmental quality (measured as a weighted composite of legal reserve preservation, deforestation, soil degradation, and ecological restoration), with the highest indices of degradation found in the northern Amazonian states and the lowest in traditionally settled areas of the south and center-west 192 .…”

“…These areas provide important pockets for biodiversity conservation within agricultural landscapes, while also serving as a source for non-timber forest products. In addition, many settlements have undertaken ecosystem rehabilitation and reforestation activities, covering over 871,000 hectares by 2001 192 . For example, several agrarian reform settlements bordering protected areas in the threatened Brazilian Atlantic Forest ecosystem have been partners in the strategic protection and reforestation of forest fragments that act as wildlife corridors, facilitating seed dispersal and providing a buffer zone to protected areas 179 , 193 , 194 .…”

From space and from the ground: determining forest dynamics in settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon

“…Furthermore, settlers have to fulfil environmental requirements to establish production fields on their plots (MDA/INCRA 2004). Although a settlement project helps poverty alleviation and promotes social development , its establishment is a process associated with many of the direct and indirect drivers of deforestation mentioned above (Van De Steeg et al 2006).…”

Environmental sustainability and land reform in South Africa: A neglected dimension

“…However, increasing evidence is emerging of the potentially negative environmental consequences of land reform, and of the failure of land reform programmes to take environmental considerations into account in their planning and decision-making processes. Most settlements arising from Brazilian land and agrarian reform, for example, have been established in or near natural ecosystems over the past 20 years (van de Steeg et al, 2006), and Fearnside (2001) paints a dark picture of how agrarian reform in the southern Para´state of Amazonia, has led to rampant deforestation and a landscape dominated by pasture. Here, the invasion of large ranches by organized, landless peasants has occurred almost exclusively in forests, despite a government directive for only non-forested areas to be settled.…”