"This volume has the strength of bringing together a diverse set of disciplines not just to juxtapose different approaches to the long-standing pattern/process relationship (which so much of the literature does) but to cut across the thorny attributes of spatial and temporal scale, which so often divide remote-sensors from social scientists."--Lowell Pritchard, Jr., Emory University

The Amazonian territories of Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador encompass nearly half of the world's remaining tropical rainforest and contain a wealth of biodiversity whose value we have only begun to appreciate. Deforestation and Land Use in the Amazon is an authoritative analysis of the socioeconomic and biophysical factors operating at local, national, and global levels that serve to promote deforestation in this delicate region.

The leading scholars and specialists in this volume, from both Latin America and the United States, present a uniquely interdisciplinary study of the historical, economic, and political causes accounting for the pace and pattern of the area’s deforestation. Their collected research provides a highly instructive sampler of the best and most useful approaches to land use and deforestation across the broad range of disciplines, agencies, and orientations involved, from the long-term impact of road construction projects, colonization schemes, and commodity prices to immediate concerns over quality of life, water availability, and climate variation.

Heavily illustrated with numerous maps, tables, and charts, the book is an unmatched resource for planners, preservationists, regulatory agencies, demographers, and anyone interested in this environmentally strategic part of the world.

Contents
Introduction: Land Use and Deforestation in the Amazon, by Charles H. Wood
Part I. National Policies and Regional Patterns
1. Spatial Regression Analysis of Deforestation in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, by David Kaimowitz, Patricia Mendez, Atie Puntodewo, and Jerry Vanclay
2. Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Lowland Bolivia, by Pablo Pacheco
3. An Analysis of the Geographical Patterns of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in the Period 1991-1996, by Diogenes S. Alves
4. Population Growth and Net Migration in the Brazilian Legal Amazon, 1970-1996, by Stephen G. Perz
Part II. Land Use Decisions and Deforestation
5. The Colonist Footprint: Toward a Conceptual Framework of Land Use and Deforestation Trajectories among Small Farmers in the Amazonian Frontier, by Eduardo S. Brondizio, Stephen D. McCracken, Emilio F. Moran, Donald R. Nelson, Andrea D. Siqueira, and Carlos Rodriguez-Pedraza
6. Land Use Patterns on an Agricultural Frontier in Brazil: Insights and Examples from a Demographic Perspective, by Stephen D. McCracken, Andrea D. Siqueira, Emilio F. Moran, and Eduardo S. Brondizio
7. Trajectories of Land Use: Soils, Succession, and Crop Choice, by Emilio F. Moran, Eduardo S. Brondízio, and Stephen D. McCracken
8. Reading Colonist Landscapes: Social Factors Influencing Land Use Decisions by Small Farmers in the Brazilian Amazon, by John O. Browder
9. Endogenous Patterns and Processes of Settler Land Use and Forest Change in the Ecuadorian Amazon, by Francisco Pichon, Catherine Marquette, Laura Murphy, and Richard Bilsborrow
Part III. Fires, Pastures, and Deforestation
10. Investigating Positive Feedbacks in the Fire Dynamic of Closed Canopy Tropical Forests, by Mark A. Cochrane, Ane Alencar, Mark D. Schulze, Carlos M. Souza Jr., Paul Lefebvre, and Daniel C. Nepstad
11. Can Pasture Intensification Discourage Deforestation in the Amazon and Pantanal Regions of Brazil? by Philip M. Fearnside
12. Land Use, Cattle Ranching, and the Concentration of Land Ownership in Maranhao, Brazil, by Roberto Porro
Part IV. Community Participation and Resource Management
13. Lessons Learned from Participatory Land Use Planning in the Brazilian Amazon, by Virgilo M. Viana and Renata Freire
14. An Experiment in Participatory Mapping in Brazil's Jau National Park, by Muriel Saragoussi, Maria do Perpetuo Socorro R. Chaves, Andrew W. Murchie, Sergio H. Borges, and Marcos Roberto

Charles H. Wood is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. Roberto Porro is an agronomist trained at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, with over 10 years of experience as a technical coordinator in conservation and development projects in the eastern Brazilian Amazon.

No Sample Chapter Available

"A valuable interdisciplinary research monograph on the historical, political and economic causes of Amazonian deforastation . . . . . Will be widely read contribution to the research literature on Amazonian deforastation and landuse change."
--IDPR