Crossing spatial analyses and livestock economics to understand deforestation processes in the Brazilian Amazon: the case of São Félix do Xingú in South Pará

The Amazon is the largest tropical forest area on Earth, and has been undergoing rapid deforestation for the last four decades. In the Brazilian Amazon, large‐scale pasture for cattle ranching and soybean production are the main land uses, leading to a yearly deforestation rate of 0.5%. These conversions are mostly located in frontier areas distributed along the so‐called “arc of deforestation”. Within this large zone, various land use change processes are interacting through several modes of land valuation and organisation. From several case studies in the State of Pará (Brazil), the current project aims at analysing how landscape dynamics are related to infrastructure development, ecological conditions, zoning policies and to the evolution and the organisation of the production, consumption and marketing chains of livestock products. This paper presents the results for one test site, the region of São Félix do Xingú, South of Pará This region is the focus of land speculation, cattle expansion, and deforestation. Road construction, investments in electrical energy, financial credit for cattle, and the land reform policies have all fuelled this process. All these factors make this region one of the most dynamic agricultural frontiers in the Brazilian Amazon. The main objective of the paper is to improve our understanding of deforestation processes by crossing spatial analyses and 1ivestock economics.studies, and to characterise the role and impact of various natural and anthropic factors in the location and development of the main types of farmers, and their policy implications.     

Amazonian indigenous peoples are threatened by Brazil’s Highway BR-319

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is under the greatest human pressure in its history. This pressure is increasing under the current presidential administration, with proposed retraction of environmental and humanitarian protections. Among these pressures are new hydroelectric dams, railways and highways. An infrastructure project with especially far-reaching consequences is the reopening of Highway BR-319 right through the heart of the Amazon Forest. The highway connects Manaus in central Amazonia to Porto Velho in the “arc of deforestation” on the southern edge of the forest. The highway crosses one of the most conserved parts of the Amazon with a large concentration of Indigenous Lands (“Terras Indígenas”). Although Brazil is a signatory to ILO Convention 169, which establishes the need for consultation with indigenous peoples and traditional communities, consultations have so far not been held. Here we argue for the need for consultation of all indigenous peoples within 150 km of any part of the highway, comprising 63 Indigenous lands and five other areas containing indigenous communities that are directly threatened by the project.     

Floods of Fortune

Abstract

The insertion of emerging business frontiers into the global economy is one of the challenges facing the globalization process. The Brazilian Legal Amazon region is one of these emerging business frontiers. Accounting for 60% of the Brazilian territory, or 4.9 million square kilometers, the Amazon holds the key for the further development and growth of the Brazilian economy. Romantic approaches to the Amazon region, aimed at turning the region into a large botanical garden, do not provide the answer to the Amazon question. However, proposals that take into account both development and conservation measures would certainly provide a more fruitful contribution to the Amazon debate. This paper argues that the Amazon region can and should be explored taking into account the region's specificities, and that appropriate technology should be developed to address the region's multiple vocations.

Resumen

El surgimiento de nuevas fronteras de negocios en la economía global representa uno de los retos mas importantes en los procesos de globalización. La región amazónica del Brasil es una de estas nuevas fronteras. Los 4.9 millones de kilómeteros cuadrados del amazonas represntan el 60% de todo el territorio brasileño y son la clave del crecimiento y desarrollo económico futuro de este país. Los enfoques romanticistas que implican la transformación de esta región en un enorme jardín botánico no proporcionan la respuesta para el dessarrollo de la misma o de la nación brasileña. Sin embargo, las propuestas que consideran en forma simultánea medidas de conservation ambientales y desarrollo económico, ciertamente producen una contribución mas significativa al debate sobe el Amazonas sin pérdida de la identidad nacional. Este artículo propone que el amazonas puede y debería ser estudiada a través de consideraciones específicas a la region y que la tecnología apropiada debería ser utilizada para promover y apoyar las vocaciones múltiples de la región.

Resumo

A inserção de fronteiras emergentes de negócios na economia globalizada é um dos desafios ao processo de globalização. A Amazônia Legal brasileira é uma dessas fronteiras emergentes de negócios. Correspondendo a 60% do território brasileiro, ou 4.9 milhões de quilômetros quadrados, a Amazônia Leagal é um componente vital no desenvolvimento e crescimento da economia brasileira. Atitudes “românticas” em relação a questão Amazônica, propõem praticamente, a transformação da região em um grande jardim botânico. Esses enfoques não providenciam soluções pragmáticas para a região. No entanto, projetos que levem em consideração desenvolvimento econômico e medidas que visem a preservação e proteção ambiental, certamente contribuem para uma visão mais realista da Região Amazônica, sem perda da identidade nacional. Este artigo levanta a tese de que a Região Amazônica pode e deve ser explorada economicamente, levando-se também em consideração, o desenvolvimento de tecnologia apropriada as vocações múltiplas da Amazônia.     

Competing with complementors: An empirical look at Amazon.com

Research Summary : Platform owners sometimes enter complementors' product spaces and compete against them. Using data from Amazon.com to study Amazon's entry pattern into third‐party sellers' product spaces, we find that Amazon is more likely to target successful product spaces. We also find that Amazon is less likely to enter product spaces that require greater seller efforts to grow, suggesting that complementors' platform‐specific investments influence platform owners' entry decisions. While Amazon's entry discourages affected third‐party sellers from subsequently pursuing growth on the platform, it increases product demand and reduces shipping costs for consumers. We consider the implications of these findings for complementors in platform‐based markets. Managerial Summary : Platform owners can exert considerable influence over their complementors' welfare. Many complementors with successful products are pushed out of markets because platform owners enter their product spaces and compete directly with them. To mitigate such risks, complementors could build their businesses by aggregating nonblockbuster products or focusing on products requiring significant platform‐specific investments to grow. They should also develop capabilities in new product discovery so that they could continually bring innovative products to their platforms.     

Evolution of the Amazonian frontier: Land values in Rondônia, Brazil

Patterns in property values provide strong signals about the future and sustainability of land use. This paper analyzes the determinants of land value in an Amazonian frontier settlement. We estimate hedonic price functions to identify factors that affect the value of farm properties in the western Brazilian Amazon. Distance to market explains nearly one-third of the variation in farm value, as predicted by the von Thünen model. After controlling for location relative to the central market and for municipality, we find that investment in the farms (as reflected in the stocking rate of pastures and the establishment of home gardens) has the next largest impact on land value. The value per hectare of land is negatively related to total lot size, suggesting that any economies of scale are outweighed by the cost of accessing remote corners of large properties. We do not find that land values are related to available measures of biophysical factors or to historic or current land use. Our results do not identify any premium for forest cover or for land uses considered to be more sustainable than pasture on the property itself. However, farm values are affected by neighboring land cover, specifically, the extent of barren land. Thus, local knowledge of factors contributing to future productivity, as summarized in land values, confirms that soil exhaustion can lead to a general decline in property values, while investments in a property both as a homestead and as a farm can help sustain frontier settlements.     

Determinants of Land Use in Amazônia: A Fine-Scale Spatial Analysis

Wetter areas of the Amazon basin exhibit lower rates of agricultural conversion. Previous analyses, using relatively aggregate data on land cover, have been unable to determine the extent to which this reflects limited access versus unfavorable agroclimatic conditions. This article uses census-tract level data for the Brazilian Amazon to relate forest conversion and pasture productivity to precipitation, soil quality, infrastructure and market access, proximity to past conversion, and protection status. The probability that land is used for agriculture or intensively stocked with cattle declines markedly with increasing rainfall, other things equal.     

Oriental imagery and American attitudes toward Asia: an exploratory tourism study

The concept of Orientalism has served to define post-colonial thinking, reflecting the West's interpretation of non-Western individuals and cultures. In this binary set, the West/us is approached as representing the standard, while the East/them represents that which is outside the norm. For the last few decades, Orientalism has continued to influence discussions in tourism studies; nevertheless, there is a dearth of empirical studies examining how the discourse lives out in daily tourism practices. Therefore, employing quantitative research methods, this study explores what Orientalism means to contemporary Americans and how it affects their attitudes toward Asian destinations. The result indicates that the imaginary construct of the East has reflected three different dimensions, namely contempt, curiosity, and fear, through which the Western world has traditionally framed the non-Western world; however, Americans generally believe that contemporary Asia cannot be adequately explained in these traditional and fixed ways. This study suggests that two terms, Asia and the East, connote very different meanings in contemporary American society, revealing how the traditional discourse of Orientalism is transformed and reinterpreted, although not totally changed, within the changing nature of the contemporary global environment.     

Agricultural development with rainforest conservation: methods for seeking best bet alternatives to slash-and-burn,with applications to Brazil and Indonesia

Forests continue to fall for agricultural purposes throughout the humid tropics, with immediate and potentially large consequences for climate change and biodiversity loss-issues of key interest to the international community. Some of the actors directly responsible for forest conversion fell trees to meet food security needs and alleviate poverty-issues of urgent interest to them and also to national policymakers. This multiplicity of groups with differing (often conflicting) interests in the multifarious goods and services produced by tropical forests complicates the search for alternative agricultural activities for forest margins since these alternatives must satisfy such divergent objectives. This paper sets out a conceptual framework for comparing the impacts of different land use systems and agricultural practices at the margins of tropical rainforests in terms of the concerns and objectives of two key interest groups: small-scale farmers seeking livelihoods at the forest margins and the ‘international’ interests in the global public goods and services supplied by tropical rainforests. This framework should be useful to a third key group, the national and regional policymakers who must consider these and other policy objectives and then decide on courses of action. The paper identifies data needs and analytical methods capable of supplying an empirical base for this conceptual framework, based on quantifiable indicators. It then presents preliminary results of the application of this conceptual framework in Indonesia and Brazil in association with a global, collaborative, multidisciplinary research program. Even using preliminary order-of-magnitude estimates (to be replaced by more precise measurements as they become available), this conceptual framework presents results in ways that allow researchers and policymakers to select clear ‘best bets’ for development, when they exist, and to assess tradeoffs and options for complementary policy action and research efforts, when they do not.