The Economics of Deforestation in the Amazon: Dispelling The Myths

The Economics of Deforestation in the Amazon: Dispelling The Myths

Language: English

Pages: 242

ISBN: 1843768798

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


This provocative new book presents the results of twenty years of research on deforestation in the Amazon. By carefully observing the changing character of human settlements and their association with deforestation over such a prolonged period, the author is able to reject much of the 'perceived wisdom'. He skillfully dissects various models of deforestation and provides hard evidence on what is myth and what is reality. The book begins by challenging a hypothesis used by many scholars to explain deforestation. The 'turnover hypothesis' states that small farmers 'cause' deforestation by moving rapidly across newly forested land in an effort to make a living. Dr. Campari argues that in reality the process is far more complex. He reveals that it is actually the larger farms who are the main culprits of deforestation and that, in comparison, the impact of small farmers is marginal. He also challenges the belief that current deforestation, as in the past, is the result of distortionary government policies. The author proves that deforestation continues today because existing policies are based on outdated assumptions of regional development. He goes on to discuss the policy implications of his important findings and identify possibilities for controlling deforestation in the future.

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time without being challenged by the owner. These rights may appear to favor the establishment of relatively small farms. Up to 3,000 hectares of lands under federal control may be claimed by using the direito de posse and the attendant administrative and regulative procedures. In some areas of the Amazon, INCRA used the following rule: a claimant who lived on the land would get preference to obtain a title for up to three times the area of forest he cleared. Therefore, any squatter had an

Pará (public colonization) Four colonization projects were surveyed in Pará. Three of them (Anapu, Pacajá and Pacal) are part of the Altamira Colonization Program, which extended 400 kilometers along the Transamazon Highway. The Altamira Colonization Project is divided into various sub-projects, three of which have been surveyed: Pacal, Anapu and Pacajá. Since these three projects were approximately ten years old when the 1981 survey was conducted, a fourth project was included in the sample to

degree of land re-concentration observed in the Lorenz curves can be measured by the change in the Gini indices between 1981 and 1991. Table 8.3 ranks projects according to this change. Table 8.3. Change in Gini indices: 1981 and 1991 Projects ranked according to change in Gini Monte Alegre Mutum Pacal Anapu/Pacajá Alta Floresta Paranaíta Change in Gini indices (Gini 91–Gini 81) –0.04 0.14 0.16 0.17 0.18 0.42 The larger the change in the Gini indices between the two periods, the greater the

corroborating evidence that colonization projects were fairly equitable in terms of land allocation among initial settlers, as projects were very similar, each displaying plot medians of, at most, 100 hectares, regardless of whether projects were public or private. None of the differences (between newcomers and survivors) within projects are statistically significant. The discrepancy observed in Monte Alegre between plots that turned over and those that did not is due to the fact that this

Newc Surv Anapu/Pacajá Newc Surv Monte Alegre Newc Surv Pacal Newc Surv Alta Floresta Newc Surv Paranaíta Newc Surv Mutum Notes: The presence of a common character in the whisker indicates that differences between survivors and newcomers are statistically significant at the 1 percent level (a), 5 percent level (b) and 10 percent level (c). The absence of a character indicates that no significant difference was found at the 10 percent level. An asterisk (*) indicates that the statistical

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