The bigger picture of deforestation in Latin America

Over the past two decades, no other region has experienced a faster agricultural expansion than that of Latin America. But the change is rarely a linear process. Cattle ranching, soy production, migration to cities and several other variables interact in different ways.

In a new paper published in Ecology and Society, centre researchers demonstrate how a database framework has allowed for cross comparisons of different case studies.

Regime shift database allows for cross comparison

Over several years, centre researchers have developed a database called the Regime Shift database consisting of cases describing the sudden shift of a system from one state to another, often in circumstances where it is difficult to return to the former state.

This paper is the result of work to establish a database with examples specific to Latin America. In these examples it is undoubtably difficult to separate the tightly intertwined social phenomena from natural phenomena, hence they are described as socio-ecological systems.

Nonetheless, there has not been as much focus on aspects such as trade or the role of public policies in causing stability – or instability – in a system. The study addresses this shortcoming.

Says co-author Lisa Deutsch: "The regime shifts database has allowed the creation of a consistent framework to systematically analyze impacts, key drivers, underlying feedbacks, and management options."

Even though every story is unique, by comparing the characteristics and drivers in the different instances, the authors start to find patterns and common features that would enable or hinder such drastic change.

Insights from these cases can then help motivate policy change to favour a more desirable system – where human activity can work in sync with natural processes.

International commodity prices crucial

Soybean price is key for the cases in Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay; gold for the case in Brazil; and coffee in Colombia.

One example is how the soy farming expansion in Brazil, Uraguay and Argentina and has pushed cattle ranchers into El Chaco, of neighbouring Paraguay. The land there is not so suitable for soy, but it is cheaper and therefore appealing for the conversion to pasture land. This trend is also driven by the growing market for beef. Similarly, the Uruguay expansion of soy is attributed to technological advancements and to increased demand from China, for use as animal feed.

Rocha explains: “This initial test of the method shows that deforestation, international trade, technological improvements, and conservation initiatives are key drivers of land-use change, and that rural migration, leasing and land pricing, conflicts in property rights, and international spillovers are common causal pathways that underlie land-use transitions.”

Policy change as a leverage point

In Pará state, Brazil, after gold mining wound down due to price drops, there was a doubling of the rural population in the 1990s. Government subsidies assisted this, in the form of agrarian credit programs and transportation infrastructure that allowed farmers to access regional markets.

But there were some negative consequences on landscapes and livelihoods. People eventually shifted from small scale subsistence farming to cash crops and ranching, resulting in increased deforestation.

Sometimes a certain variable in one context can have a different impact in another, and this is really the nature of the challenge when it comes to trying to draw generalisations from case studies. Migration from rural and urban areas in the Argentinian Pampas region played out a little differently compared to Pará state. In this instance the rural population shrank drastically. It caused land ownership to be consolidated into fewer individuals, favouring expansion of soy agriculture.

In Latin America, the context of these case studies is characterized by challenges of weak land rights institutions, leading to conflict.

The authors conclude that “although more cases are needed, our preliminary results show that policy outcomes are often nonlinear with unforeseen consequences, including leakage effects between cases.”