Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-tbj44 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T08:33:06.670Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Smallholder land clearing and the Forest Code in the Brazilian Amazon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2019

Stella Z. Schons ,
Eirivelton Lima ,
Gregory S. Amacher  and
Frank Merry
Stella Z. Schons*
Affiliation:
Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Eirivelton Lima
Affiliation:
Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, USA
Gregory S. Amacher
Affiliation:
College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Frank Merry
Affiliation:
Conservation Strategy Fund, Washington, DC, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: szschons@vt.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Small landholders’ contribution to Amazon deforestation in Brazil has been persistent even after government actions have allowed a steep reduction in the overall annual deforestation area since 2004. We investigate land clearing and the incentives to comply versus not to comply with environmental legislation, allowing for selection into compliance or noncompliance due to unobserved perceptions of Forest Code enforcement. Our dynamic land clearing model is empirically tested through an endogenous switching regression method applied to data collected from households in the Transamazon-BR163 region between 2003 and 2014, when Forest Code enforcement supposedly increased. We show that smallholder compliance and noncompliance preferences lead to a selection problem that must be addressed in any land clearing behavior examination. We find that greater marginalization, longer land tenure and transitions to cattle grazing, but not agricultural rents, are major contributors to forest clearance and incentives not to comply with the Forest Code.

Keywords

Brazilian Forest Codeenvironmental legislation enforcement perceptionssmallholders in the Amazon

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 157 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abdulai, A and Huffman, W (2014) The adoption and impact of soil and water conservation technology: an endogenous switching regression application. Land Economics 90, 26–43.Google Scholar
Aldrich, SP, Walker, RT, Arima, EY, Caldas, MM, Browder, JO and Perz, S (2006) Land-cover and land-use change in the Brazilian Amazon: smallholders, ranchers, and frontier stratification. Economic Geography 82, 265–288.Google Scholar
Andersen, LE, Granger, CW, Reis, EJ, Weinhold, D and Wunder, S (2002) The Dynamics of Deforestation and Economic Growth in the Brazilian Amazon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Arima, EY, Barreto, P, Araújo, E and Soares-Filho, B (2014) Public policies can reduce tropical deforestation: lessons and challenges from Brazil. Land Use Policy 41, 465–473.Google Scholar
Barbier, E and Burgess, J (2001) The economics of tropical deforestation. Journal of Economic Surveys 15, 413–433.Google Scholar
Bowman, M, Amacher, G and Merry, F (2008) Fire use and prevention by traditional households in the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Economics 67, 117–130.Google Scholar
Brandão, A Jr, Souza, C Jr, Veríssimo, A, Pinto, A and Amaral, P (2013) Situação do desmatamento nos assentamentos de reforma agrária no Estado do Pará. Relatório. Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia (IMAZON), Belém-PA (in Portuguese).Google Scholar
Caviglia-Harris, J and Sills, E (2005) Land use and income diversification: comparing traditional and colonist populations in the Brazilian Amazon. Agricultural Economics 32, 221–237.Google Scholar
Dutoit, LC (2007) Heckman's selection model, endogenous and exogenous switching models, a survey. Unpublished paper. Available at http://works.bepress.com/laure_dutoit/3.Google Scholar
Greene, W (2003) Econometric Analysis, 5th Edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Hartwick, JM, Van Long, N and Tian, H (2001) Deforestation and development in a small open economy. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 41, 235–251.Google Scholar
Lima, E, Merry, F, Nepstad, D, Amacher, G, Azevedo-Ramos, C, Lefebvre, P and Resque, F (2006) Searching for sustainability: forest policies, smallholders, and the Trans-Amazon highway. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 48, 26–38.Google Scholar
Lokshin, M and Sajaia, Z (2004) Maximum likelihood estimation of endogenous switching regression models. Stata Journal 4, 282–289.Google Scholar
Ludewigs, T, Brondízio, ES and Hetrick, S (2009) Agrarian structure and land-cover change along the lifespan of three colonization areas in the Brazilian Amazon. World Development 37, 1348–1359.Google Scholar
Maddala, GS (1983) Limited-Dependent and Qualitative Variables in Econometrics (No. 3). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maddala, GS (1986) Disequilibrium, self-selection, and switching models. In Griliches, Z and Intriligator, MD (eds). Handbook of Econometrics, vol. 3. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 1633–1688.Google Scholar
Maddala, GS and Nelson, FD (1975) Switching regression models with exogenous and endogenous switching. Proceedings of the American Statistical Association 5, 423–426.Google Scholar
Margulis, S (2003) Causas do desmatamento da Amazo^nia Brasileira. Trabalho em Andamento para Discussão Pública, Banco Mundial, Brasília, DF (in Portuguese).Google Scholar
Merry, F, Amacher, G, Macqeen, D, Guimares dos Santos, M, Lima, E and Nepstad, D (2006) Collective action without collective ownership: community associations and logging on the Amazon frontier. International Forestry Review 8, 211–221.Google Scholar
Merry, F, Amacher, G and Lima, E (2008) Land values in frontier settlements of the Brazilian Amazon. World Development 36, 2390–2401.Google Scholar
Mullan, K, Sills, E, Pattanayak, SK and Caviglia-Harris, J (2018) Converting forests to farms: the economic benefits of clearing forests in agricultural settlements in the Amazon. Environmental and Resource Economics 71, 427–455.Google Scholar
Nepstad, D, McGrath, D, Stickler, C, Alencar, A, Azevedo, A, Swette, B, Bezerra, T, DiGiano, M, Shimada, J, da Motta, RS and Armijo, E (2014), Slowing Amazon deforestation through public policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains. Science 344, 1118–1123.Google Scholar
Ngoma, H (2018) Does minimum tillage improve the livelihood outcomes of smallholder farmers in Zambia? Food Security 10, 381–396.Google Scholar
Ogundari, K and Bolarinwa, OD (2018) Impact of agricultural innovation adoption: a meta-analysis. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 62, 217–236.Google Scholar
Pacheco, P (2009) Smallholder livelihoods, wealth and deforestation in the eastern Amazon. Human Ecology 37, 27–41.Google Scholar
Pereira, R, Simmons, CS and Walker, R (2016) Smallholders, agrarian reform, and globalization in the Brazilian Amazon: cattle versus the environment. Land 5, 24, https://doi.org/10.3390/land5030024.Google Scholar
Pfaff, A, Amacher, G and Sills, E (2013) Realistic REDD: improving the forest impacts of domestic policies in different settings. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 7, 114–135.Google Scholar
Santiago, TMO, Caviglia-Harris, J and Rezende, JLP (2018) Carrots, sticks and the Brazilian Forest Code: the promising response of small landowners in the Amazon. Journal of Forest Economics 30, 38–51.Google Scholar
Schons, SZ, Azevedo, A and Alencar, A (2013) Pronaf na Amazônia: quais os desafios? Boletim Amazônia em Pauta No.2, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental do Amazônia, Brasília, DF (in Portuguese).Google Scholar
Soares-Filho, B, Moutinho, P, Nepstad, D, Anderson, A, Rodrigues, H, Garcia, R, Dietzsch, L, Merry, F, Bowman, M, Hissa, L and Silvestrini, R (2010) Role of Brazilian Amazon protected areas in climate change mitigation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, 10821–10826.Google Scholar
Soares-Filho, B, Rajão, R, Macedo, M, Carneiro, A, Costa, W, Coe, M, Rodrigues, H and Alencar, A (2014) Cracking Brazil's forest code. Science 344, 363–364.Google Scholar
Takasaki, Y (2007) Dynamic household models of forest clearing under distinct land and labor market institutions: can agricultural policies reduce tropical deforestation? Environment and Development Economics 12, 423–443.Google Scholar
Wolfersberger, J, Delacote, P and Garcia, S (2015) An empirical analysis of forest transition and land-use change in developing countries. Ecological Economics 119, 241–251.Google Scholar