Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:14:08.627Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Have tropical deforestation's changing dynamics created conservation opportunities? A historical analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

THOMAS K. RUDEL
THOMAS K. RUDEL*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Ecology, School of Environmental and Biology Sciences, Rutgers University, 55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr Thomas Rudel e-mail: rudel@aesop.rutgers.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

During the past century, humans converted extensive areas of tropical forest into cultivated lands. Three distinct processes, each predominant during a different historical period, have driven the destruction of the forests. This review describes each of these deforestation dynamics: natural resource degrading poverty traps that predominated during the colonial era, new land settlement schemes that prevailed for two decades after decolonization, and finally, financialized, large enterprise dynamics that have predominated during the past quarter century. Each dynamic has, over time, given rise to different opportunities for conservation. Peasants emigrated from the sites of the poverty traps, and regrowth began to cover these degraded landscapes. Smallholders in the new land settlement areas became better acquainted with tropical tree species and allowed some trees to recolonize their fields, creating silvopastoral and agroforested landscapes. The heads of large enterprises relied on credit to clear land, so government regulators found that they could curb corporate-led deforestation by restricting access to credit when landowners failed to comply with laws against forest clearing. These links between deforestation's dynamics during past eras and conservation policies during the present era illustrate how a historical understanding of tropical deforestation can provide the basis for effective conservation policies.

Keywords

colonization projectsconservation policyfinancializationpoverty trapstropical deforestation
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 108 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abuza, Z. (2011) Borderlands, terrorism, and insurgency in Southeast Asia. In: The Borderlands of Southeast Asia, ed. Clad, J., McDonald, S. & Vaughn, B., pp. 89–106. Washington, DC, USA: Institute for National Strategic Studies.Google Scholar
Aguirre Beltran, G. (1979) Regions of Refuge. Washington, DC, USA: Society of Applied Anthropology, Monograph #12.Google Scholar
Aide, T. & Grau, R. (2004) Globalization, migration, and Latin American eco-systems. Science 305: 1915–1916.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aide, T., Clark, M. & Grau, R. (2013) Deforestation and reforestation of Latin America and the Caribbean. Biotropica 45 (2):162–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alix-Garcia, J., de Janvry, A. & Sadoulet, E. (2005) An assessment of Mexico's payment for environmental services program. Report prepared for the Comparative Studies Service, Agricultural and Economic Development Unit, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Angelsen, A. & Kaimowitz, D. (1999) Rethinking the causes of deforestation: lessons from economic models. World Bank Research Observer 14: 73–98.Google Scholar
Antrop, M. (2005) Why landscapes of the past are important for the future. Landscape and Urban Planning 70: 21–34.Google Scholar
ASB-ICRAF (2013) ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins [www document]. URL http://www.asb.cgiar.org/ Google Scholar
Assuncao, J., Gandour, G., Rocha, R. & Rocha, R. (2013) Does credit affect deforestation? Evidence from a rural credit policy in the Brazilian Amazon. Report. Climate Policy Initiative Technical Report, Nucleo da Avaliacao de Politicas Climaticas, Pontifica Universidad Catolica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Google Scholar
Babb, S. (2012) The Washington Consensus as transnational policy paradigm: its origins, trajectory and likely successor. Review of International Political Economy 19: 1–30.Google Scholar
Barona, E., Ramankutty, N., Hyman, G. & Coomes, O. (2010) The role of pasture and soybeans in the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters 5 (2): doi:10.1088/1748-9326/5/2/024002.Google Scholar
Blaikie, P. & Brookfield, H. (1987) Land Degradation and Society. London, UK: Methuen.Google Scholar
Boucher, D., Roquemore, S. & Fitzhugh, E. (2013). Brazil's success in reducing deforestation. Tropical Conservation Science 6: 426–445.Google Scholar
Bremer, L., Farley, K. & Lopez-Carr, D. (2014) What factors influence participation in payment for ecosystem services programs?: An evaluation of Ecuador's SocioPáramo program. Land Use Policy. 36: 122–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, R. (1971) The Art of the Possible: The Memoirs of Lord Butler. London, UK: Hamish Hamilton.Google Scholar
Carr, D. (2009) Population and deforestation: why rural migration matters. Progress in Human Geography 33: 355–378.Google Scholar
Casson, A. (2000) The hesitant boom: Indonesia's oil palm sub-sector in an era of economic crisis and political change. Occasional Paper #29. Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia.Google Scholar
Cohen, D. (1992) The debt crisis: a post-mortem. In: NBER Macroeconomics, Volume 7, ed. Blanchard, O. J. & Fischer, S., pp. 65–114. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dean, W. (1995) With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Denevan, W. (2001) Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes. Oxford, UK and New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeFries, R. & Rosenzweig, C. (2010) Towards a whole landscape approach for sustainable land use in the tropics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107: 19627–19632.Google Scholar
DeFries, R., Herold, M., Macedo, M. & Shimabukuro, Y. (2013) Export oriented deforestation in Mato Grosso: harbinger or exception for other tropical forests. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B. Biological Sciences. 368 (1619): doi: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0173.Google Scholar
DeFries, R., Rudel, T., Uriarte, M. & Hansen, M. (2010) Deforestation driven by urban population growth and agricultural trade in the twenty-first century. Nature Geosciences 3: 178–181.Google Scholar
Ernst, C., Mayaux, P., Verhegghen, A., Bodart, C., Christophe, M., & Defourny, P. (2013) National forest cover change in Congo Basin: Deforestation, reforestation, degradation and regeneration for the years 1990, 2000 and 2005. Global Change Biology 19 (4): 1173–1187.Google Scholar
Fearnside, P. (2005) Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: history, rates, and consequences. Conservation Biology 19: 680–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira Filho, J., Bento, J. & Horridge, M. (2014) Ethanol production and indirect land use change in Brazil. Land Use Policy. 36: 595–604.Google Scholar
Foster, D., Swanson, F., Aber, J., Burke, I., Brokaw, N., Tilman, D. & Knapp, A. (2003) The importance of land-use legacies to ecology and conservation. BioScience 53: 77–88.Google Scholar
Frank, A. (1967) Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York, NY, USA: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Gasparri, N., Grau, R. & Gutierrez Angonese, J. (2013) Linkages between soybeans and neotropical deforestation: coupling and transient decoupling dynamics in a multi-decadal analysis. Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions. 23 (6): 1605–1614.Google Scholar
Geist, H. & Lambin, E. (2002) Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. Bioscience 52: 143–150.Google Scholar
Getahun, K., Van Rompaey, A., Van Turnhout, P. & Poesen, J. (2013) Factors controlling patterns of deforestation in moist evergreen Afromontane forests of SW Ethiopia. Forest Ecology and Management 304: 171–181.Google Scholar
Gibson, G. & Gurmu, E. (2012) Rural to urban migration is an unforeseen impact of development intervention in Ethiopia. PLoS ONE 7 (11): e48708. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048708.Google Scholar
Grindle, M. (1986) State and Countryside: Development Policy and Agrarian Politics in Latin America. Baltimore, MD, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, M., Stehman, S. & Potapov, P. (2008) Humid tropical forest clearing from 2000 to 2005 quantified by using multi-temporal and multi-resolution remotely sensed data. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105: 9439–9444.Google Scholar
Hill, P. (1963) The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana: A Study in Rural Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holden, S. & Huoslef, H. (1995) Transmigration settlements in Seberida: causes and consequences of the deterioration of farming systems of settlers in a rain forest environment. In: Management of Tropical Forests: Towards an Integrated Perspective, ed. Sandbukt, O., pp. 107–125. Oslo, Norway: Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Holloway, V. & Giandomenico, E. (2009) The history of REDD policy. Carbon Planet Limited, Adelaide, Australia [www document]. URL http://www.forestcarbonportal.com/resource/history-redd-policy Google Scholar
Jarosz, L. (1993) Defining and explaining tropical deforestation: shifting cultivation and population growth in colonial Madagascar (1896–1940). Economic Geography 69: 366–379 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaimowitz, D. (2002) The Meaning of Johannesburg. Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Polex Listserv. URL http://blog.cifor.org/372/the-meaning-of-johannesburg#.U_HIM_mSxXl Google Scholar
Kaimowitz, D. & Smith, J. (2001) Soybean technology and the loss of natural vegetation in Brazil and Bolivia. In: Agricultural Technologies and Tropical Deforestation, ed. Angelsen, A. & Kaimowitz, D., pp. 195–212. London, UK: CAB International.Google Scholar
Kammerbauer, J. & Ardon, C. (1999) Land use dynamics and landscape change pattern in a typical watershed in the hillside region of central Honduras. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 75: 93–100.Google Scholar
Laurance, W., Cochrane, M., Bergen, S., Fearnside, P., Delamonica, P., Barber, C., D’Angelo, S. & Fernandes, T. (2001) The future of the Brazilian Amazon. Science 291: 438–439.Google Scholar
Likaka, O. (1997) Rural Society and Cotton in Colonial Zaire. Madison, WI, USA: the University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Mather, A. (1992) The forest transition. Area 24: 367–397.Google Scholar
Mather, A. & Needle, C. (1998) The forest transition: a theoretical basis. Area 30: 117–124.Google Scholar
MacAdam, D. (1982) Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McElwee, P.D. (2009) Reforesting ‘bare hills’ in Vietnam: social and environmental consequences of the 5 million hectare reforestation program. Ambio 38: 325–333.Google Scholar
McPeak, J. & Barrett, C. (2001) Differential risk exposure and stochastic poverty traps among East African pastoralists. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 83: 674–679.Google Scholar
Migdal, J. (1988) Strong Societies and Weak States. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, H. & Vaughan, M. (1994) Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, and Agricultural Changes in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890–1990. Portsmouth, NH, USA: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Morton, D., DeFries, R., Shimabukuro, Y., Anderson, L., Arai, E., del Bon Espiritu-Santo, F., Frietas, R. & Morisette, J. (2006) Cropland expansion changes deforestation dynamics in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103: 14637–14641.Google Scholar
Netting, R. (1993) Smallholders, Householders: The Ecology of Small Scale, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford, CA, USA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, R. (1998) Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nygren, A. (2000) Development discourse and peasant-forest relations: natural resource utilization as social process. Development and Change 31: 11–34.Google Scholar
Parsons, J. J. (1969) Antioqueno Colonization in Western Colombia. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Perz, S., Overdevest, C., Caldas, M., Walker, R. & Arima, E. (2007) Unofficial road building in the Brazilian Amazon: dilemmas and models for road governance. Environmental Conservation 34: 112–121.Google Scholar
Redo, D., Grau, R., Aide, T. & Clark, M. (2012) Asymmetric forest transition driven by the interaction of socioeconomic development and environmental heterogeneity in Central America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109: 8839–44.Google Scholar
Richards, P., Myers, R., Swinton, S. & Walker, R. (2012) Exchange rates, soybean supply response, and deforestation in South America. Global Environmental Change 22: 454–462.Google Scholar
Rudel, T. (2005) Tropical Forests: Regional Paths of Destruction and Regeneration in the Late 20th Century. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rudel, T. (2007) Changing agents of deforestation: from state initiated to enterprise driven processes, 1970–2000. Land Use Policy 24: 35–41.Google Scholar
Rudel, T. (2013) The national determinants of deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B. Biological Sciences 368: doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0405.Google Scholar
Rudel, T. & Horowitz, B. (1993) Tropical Deforestation: Small Farmers and Land Clearing in the Ecuadorian Amazon. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rudel, T., Flesher, K., Bates, D., Baptista, S. & Holmgren, P. (2000 b) The tropical deforestation literature: geographical and historical patterns of information. Unasylva 51: 46–53.Google Scholar
Rudel, T., Perez-Lugo, M. & Zichal, H. (2000 a) When fields revert to forests: Development and spontaneous reforestation in post-War Puerto Rico. Professional Geographer 52: 386–397.Google Scholar
Salazar, E. (1986) Pioneros de la Selva: Los Colonos del Proyecto Upano-Palora. Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones Abya-Yala.Google Scholar
Sikor, T. & Truong, D. (2002) Agricultural policy and land use changes in a Black Thai commune of Northern Vietnam, 1952–1997. Mountain Research and Development 22: 248–255.Google Scholar
Smith, N. (1982) Rainforest Corridors: The Transamazon Colonization Schemes. Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Soluri, J. (2005) Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States. Austin, TX, USA: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Stavenhagen, R. (1981) Between Underdevelopment and Revolution: A Latin American Perspective. New Delhi, India: Abhinav Publications.Google Scholar
Sunderlin, W., Dewi, S., Puntodewo, A., Müller, D., Angelsen, A. & Epprecht, M. (2008) Why forests are important for global poverty alleviation: a spatial explanation. Ecology and Society 13: 24.Google Scholar
Thiesenhusen, W. (1995) Broken Promises: Agrarian Reform and the Latin American Campesino. Boulder, CO, USA: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Tiffen, M., Mortimore, M. & Gichuki, F. (1994) More People, Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Uhlig, H. (1988) Spontaneous and planned settlement in Southeast Asia. In: Agricultural Expansion and Pioneer Settlement in the Humid Tropics, ed. Manshard, W. & Morgan, W., pp. 7–43. Tokyo, Japan: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
Vayda, A. & Sahur, A. (1985) Forest clearing and pepper farming by Bugis migrants in East Kalimantan: antecedents and impacts. Indonesia 39: 93–110.Google Scholar
Walters, B. & Hansen, L. (2013) Farmed landscapes, trees and forest conservation in Saint Lucia (West Indies). Environmental Conservation 40: 211–221.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (1949) The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Translated E. Shils & H. Finch. Glencoe, IL, USA: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wickham-Crowley, T. (1992) Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Regimes and Insurgents since 1956. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wickham-Crowley, T. (1994) An epitaph for Latin American revolutionaries. Third World Quarterly 15: 528–532.Google Scholar
Williams, M. (2005) Deforesting the Earth: From Pre-history to Global Crisis. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar