Lessons for other forest margin settings

“Best bet” Land-use Systems

Country reports

Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn in Brazil

Impact: Local Action, Global Lessons

Unique id: IDAEFDYB

Source file: D:\Projects\ASB\ASB Country and Thematic reports\Brazil country report\ASB Brazil Summary Report.xml

Authors: S. Vosti, C. L. Carpentier, J. Witcover, . Carvalho dos Santos, E. Muñoz Braz, J. Ferreira Valentim, S. J. de Magalhães de Oliveira, C. Palm, F. de Souza Moreira, A. Cattaneo, A. Gillison, A. Mansur Mendes, V. Rodrigues, T. C. de Araújo Gomes, M. V. Neves d’Oliveira, E. do Amaral, S. Fujisaka, C. Castilla, T. Tomich, D. Bignell, D. Gonçalves Cordeiro, A. Hermes Vieira, R.S. Correira da Costa, M. Faminow, M. Locatelli, M. Swift, S. Weise, M. van Noordwijk, N. Sampaio, I. L. Franke, H. J. Borges de Araujo, L. M. Rossi, E. Barros, B. Feigl, S.P. Huang, J. Cares, C. Pinho de Sá, . Carneiro, P. Woomer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The results of ASB-Embrapa research are relevant for small-scale farming not only in the western Brazilian Amazon but also in other areas with similar factor endowments—particularly labour scarcity and land abundance amid imperfect credit markets—and in the general economic context of growing but as yet incomplete links between farmers and markets. The research methods and tools developed and deployed for this study will be relevant for a broader set of circumstances in which the issues of poverty, environment and growth must be addressed simultaneously. These circumstances can be characterized as follows:

• Agro-ecological zones and economic conditions. Soils in the western Brazilian Amazon are poor, labour is scarce and the potential for intensive forest-extractive activities is limited by the low natural occurrence of commercially valuable products, and high storage and transportation costs. These factors, which characterize many forest margin areas in Latin America (and in other regions), were found to influence deforestation rates and the use of cleared land. This suggests that studies focusing on market analysis alone may omit important aspects of land use in remote areas in other developing country settings too. That said, the specific findings must also be placed in their proper overall economic and agronomic contexts. Our study sites are characterized by expanding links to markets with profit opportunities created by growing regional demand. However, differences in critical economic factors could make our findings less relevant in other settings.

• Ranges of factor endowments. Population densities in the rural areas of our study sites are low—only three people per square kilometre for the state of Acre—but if policy efforts to reduce access to forest areas are successful, these densities will increase, to levels more in line with those of other areas in Brazil and in the developing world as a whole (for example, there are 33 people per square kilometre in the medium-density areas of Cameroon). Policy makers throughout the humid tropics should be aware of such dramatic potential declines in land availability and should look outside their borders for clues as to how to manage this transition in ways that will protect the forest and sustain livelihoods.

• Policy setting. The western Brazilian Amazon is a frontier area, characterized by the general absence of strong government, lack of effective policy instruments, incomplete knowledge regarding the natural resource base and its possible uses, high transportation costs and a lack of public-sector institutions and services. We would expect the importance of communally based resource management, the length of time forest margin areas have been inhabited, and the distance to markets to alter the effects of changes in policy or technology on land use in other settings.