Deforestation Trajectories on a Development Frontier in the Brazilian Amazon: 35 Years of Settlement Colonization, Policy and Economic Shifts, and Land Accumulation

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Agrarian reform; Deforestation actors; Land grabbing; Land speculation; Land-use change; Tropical forest.

Fig. 1

A portion of the Brazilian Amazon showing the “arc of deforestation” and the 20 municipalities and settlement projects with the highest cumulative deforestation in the 2013–2018 period

Fig. 2

Cumulative deforestation (2013–2018) of the 20 settlement projects with largest cumulative area in the Brazilian Amazon divided by class of polygon size. Sources: Brazil, INPE Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (2020), and Brazil, INCRA Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (2015)

Fig. 3

Deforested areas in the Rio Juma settlement project and its 5-km buffer from 1981 to 2016. All farm lots (n = 5424) appear outlined in gray

Fig. 4

Farm lots with >2 ha deforested by 2016 (n = 4546) in the Rio Juma settlement divided into five cohorts or colonization phases. Lots are color-coded based on the year interval (phase of colonization) in which they first deforested more than 2 ha

Fig. 5

Average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and in the Rio Juma settlement (including its 5-km buffer) in each phase of colonization (year intervals). The Brazilian Amazon average deforestation rates were taken from Brazil, INPE Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (2020), obtained from summing those in each year interval (e.g., 1982–1985) divided by the number of years in the interval. Deforestation rates in the Rio Juma settlement are based on satellite imagery interpreted in the present study

Fig. 6

Results of Model 1 for deforestation/year (ha) in farm lots <200 ha in area for all lots, and for lots grouped into cohorts representing five phases of occupation of the Rio Juma settlement; results of Model 2 for the proportion of lots deforesting per period, for all lots, and for lots grouped by cohorts representing five phases of occupation. Solid lines are the predicted means and dashed lines are the 95% confidence intervals

Fig. 7

Annual average deforestation per class of household in each phase of colonization in the Rio Juma settlement