Land inequality and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Sant’Anna, André Albuquerque

doi:10.1017/s1355770x1600022x

Cited by 27 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Nevertheless, both small and large landholders play an important role in deforestation for the development of pastures and crops 15 , 16 . Economic growth in Brazil is partially dependent on the availability of new forest areas for agri-business investment and human occupation, hastening destruction of the Amazon forest 17 , 18 . According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) 19 , the inclusion of forestry products in the commercial exploitation of natural resources in 2015 represented an increase of approximately USD$ 1.5 billion in the gross value of Brazilian commodities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abundance of impacted forest patches less than 5 km2 is a key driver of the incidence of malaria in Amazonian Brazil

Chaves

Conn

López

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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The precise role that deforestation for agricultural settlements and commercial forest products plays in promoting or inhibiting malaria incidence in Amazonian Brazil is controversial. Using publically available databases, we analyzed temporal malaria incidence (2009–2015) in municipalities of nine Amazonian states in relation to ecologically defined variables: (i) deforestation (rate of forest clearing over time); (ii) degraded forest (degree of human disturbance and openness of forest canopy for logging) and (iii) impacted forest (sum of deforested and degraded forest patches). We found that areas affected by one kilometer square of deforestation produced 27 new malaria cases (r² = 0.78; F1,10 = 35.81; P < 0.001). Unexpectedly, we found both a highly significant positive correlation between number of impacted forest patches less than 5 km2 and malaria cases, and that these patch sizes accounted for greater than ~95% of all patches in the study area. There was a significantly negative correlation between extraction forestry economic indices and malaria cases. Our results emphasize not only that deforestation promotes malaria incidence, but also that it directly or indirectly results in a low Human Development Index, and favors environmental conditions that promote malaria vector proliferation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abundance of impacted forest patches less than 5 km2 is a key driver of the incidence of malaria in Amazonian Brazil

Chaves

Conn

López

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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“…When looking specifically at land inequality, additional considerations come to mind. An uneven distribution of land may reduce access to land and thus exacerbate the effect of demographic pressures on further agricultural expansion and deforestation (18,30,51,52). Further, agricultural expansion may be easier in areas where land property is concentrated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of income, land, and wealth inequality on agricultural expansion in Latin America

Ceddia

2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Agricultural expansion remains the most prominent proximate cause of tropical deforestation in Latin America, a region characterized by deforestation rates substantially above the world average and extremely high inequality. This paper deploys several multivariate statistical models to test whether different aspects of inequality, within a context of increasing agricultural productivity, promote agricultural expansion (Jevons paradox) or contraction (land-sparing) in 10 Latin American countries over 1990-2010. Here I show the existence of distinct patterns between the instantaneous and the overall (i.e., accounting for temporal lags) effect of increasing agricultural productivity, conditional on the degree of income, land, and wealth inequality. In a context of perfect equality, the instantaneous effect of increases in agricultural productivity is to promote agricultural expansion (Jevons paradox). When temporal lags are accounted for, agricultural productivity appears to be mainly land-sparing. Increases in the level of inequality, in all its forms, promote agricultural expansion, thus eroding the land-sparing effects of increasing productivity. The results also suggest that the instantaneous impact of inequality is larger than the overall effect (accounting for temporal lags) and that the effects of income inequality are stronger than those of land and wealth inequality, respectively. Reaping the benefits of increasing agricultural productivity, and achieving sustainable agricultural intensification in Latin America, requires policy interventions that specifically address inequality. tropical deforestation | Latin America | agricultural expansion | Jevons paradox | inequality

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“…(1) How does variety of human decision making shape the forest transition regime shifts?Which types of variety have the greatest impact on these shifts and how do these impacts vary across contexts?Differences in land ownership and wealth are known to shape people's decisions to migrate and send remittances back to their families Martin 2001, Mendola 2012), and they influence how people make land use decisions , Sant'anna 2017. In our model all rural residents share the benefits obtained from agricultural land.…”

Section: Future Research Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migrant remittances can reduce the potential of local forest transitions—a social-ecological regime shift analysis

Ospina

Peterson

Crépin

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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We explore how remittances shape the effect of rural out-migration on the potential for local forest transitions. Building on an existing theoretical model of social-ecological regime shifts that links migration, farmland abandonment, and forest regrowth, we incorporate migrant remittances as an additional rural-urban teleconnection. We also extend the ecological dynamics to include a dynamical forest regrowth rate, generating a slowing-down of regrowth once the landscape has undergone extensive agricultural change. We first analyse how these two extensions to the base model reshape the stability of the system, altering the existence and dynamics of alternative agricultural and forested regimes. Then we explore how two different uses of remittances by rural households (hiring agricultural labor or supplementing household income/consumption) affect the potential for local forest transitions in a context of structural economic change, represented as an increasing differential of rural and urban incomes. We find that remittances change the character of forested and agricultural regimes, and increase the resilience of the agricultural regime. This effect is stronger when remittances are used for hiring labor. The findings are consistent with empirical research that highlights the remarkable persistence of rural livelihoods and landscapes in the face of increasing global connectivity and urbanization. Remittances, and possibly other rural-urban teleconnections, are necessary components for an updated 'economic development pathway' of forest transitions. With this simple model we show that social-ecological regime shifts offer a useful perspective to study land use transition dynamics and advance land change theory.

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Land inequality and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Cited by 27 publications

References 31 publications

Abundance of impacted forest patches less than 5 km2 is a key driver of the incidence of malaria in Amazonian Brazil

Abundance of impacted forest patches less than 5 km2 is a key driver of the incidence of malaria in Amazonian Brazil

The impact of income, land, and wealth inequality on agricultural expansion in Latin America

Migrant remittances can reduce the potential of local forest transitions—a social-ecological regime shift analysis

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