New roads open wilderness landscapes to development, and commodity markets drive the expansion of the agricultural frontier. These two causes of deforestation are at the centre of deforestation policy discussions. A third factor – land values and their tendency to appreciate over time – is a synergistic product of these two phenomena. Understanding the dynamics of rural real estate markets is essential in devising policies to halt the advance of the conventional economy into the forest wilderness. The agricultural frontier in the Pan Amazon is the product of centuries of cultural tradition and decades of economic policy. This phenomenon, which is central to the history of the Western Hemisphere, became a major disruptive force in the Pan Amazon only in the 1960s, when governments implemented programmes to occupy and develop their Amazonian hinterlands. Unlike previous colonisation periods, such as the rubber boom of the nineteenth century, this latter period included initiatives to promote the mass migration of families into the region, which were combined with strategies to attract investment in market-based production systems. These policies were contingent on the offer of free, or nearly free, public land. Access to land was conditional, however, and pioneers had to install a productive enterprise, which obligated them to replace natural vegetation with cultivated plants. Official policies have changed, but this practice continues to motivate individuals on the forest frontier, where people clear forest as a strategy to project ownership of land they view, rightly or wrongly, as their own. Most believe they are…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The post Land in the Pan Amazon: the ultimate commodity. Chapter 4 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” appeared first on EnviroLink Network.