Logging roads in the Amazon basin and forest fragmentation: modeling challenges
Eugenio
Arima, Michigan State University and IMAZON, arimaeug@msu.edu
(Presenting)
This presentation addresses the spatial process of logging road extension and the resulting spatial architecture of expanding road networks in the Brazilian Amazon forest. Roads have been usually associated with governmental investments to promote national integration and development. However, the private sector (e.g., loggers) has been active in building roads and has therefore been playing an important role in the dynamics of the frontier expansion in the Amazon. In building roads, loggers seek to maximize profits subject to capital and institutional constraints (laws and regulations). The choice of a route to extract trees also results from social interactions with other actors such as farmers, colonists, and politicians. I will present a typology of logging roads and the information and assumptions needed to model each type of road. Finally, I will present advances in modeling applied to a portion of the Transamazon region in Par� state.
Submetido por Eugenio Arima em 15-MAR-2004
Tema Cient�fico do LBA: LC (Mudan�as dos Usos da Terra e da Vegeta��o)