Socio-spatial processes of forest fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon: the role of settlement roads
Marcellus
Marques
Caldas, Michigan State University, caldasma@msu.edu
(Presenting)
Robert
T.
Walker, Michigan State University, rwalker@msu.edu
Eugenio
Arima, IMAZON/ Michigan State University, arimaeug@msu.edu
Stephen
G
Perz, University of Florida, sperz@soc.ufl.edu
Cynthia
Simmons, Michigan State University, simmo1cs@cmich.edu
Alexander
Paff, Columbia University, ap196@columbia.edu
Steve
Aldrich, Michigan State University, aldric30@msu.edu
Jiaguo
Qi, Michigan State University, qi@msu.edu
Loss of tropical forest remains a subject of great interest due to potential implications for global carbon cycles and biodiversity. This paper considers the social processes that drive deforestation in the Amazon basin by considering frontier governance in mitigating excessive forest loss. Our methodology is a descriptive case study of land cover change in the municipality of Uruara, in the Brazilian State of Pará. Uruara is home to a colonization frontier established by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform, or INCRA, in the early 1970s. Although limited to a specific county in the eastern sector of the Amazon basin, much of the discussion is relevant to other areas where colonization is occurring. The study focuses on the primitive transportation corridor we refer to as the settlement road. Such roads were originally constructed -- and continue to be extended – to provide access to land off the development highways. Our conclusions highlight that the socio-spatial process of landscape change in the micro-frontier of Uruara shows no signs of abating, and that for the future of Amazonia, new highways and infrastructure investments will initiate new processes of land occupation not unlike those described here, in the absence of effective local governance and enforcement of the law.