Wildfires pose a major threat to the integrity of the planet’s remaining tropical forests, whose ... more Wildfires pose a major threat to the integrity of the planet’s remaining tropical forests, whose flammability is increased by continued fragmentation and over-exploitation of timber, combined with more frequent and severe droughts from a changing climate. Forest fires also jeopardize the effectiveness of investments in forest conservation from carbon finance, in addition to having the potential to cause serious health problems in rural populations. Consequently, the use of fire in tropical agricultural – traditionally used as a labour-saving method of clearing fallow appears increasingly incompatible with both forest conservation and sustainable development for the very communities who depend upon its use. Yet governments in forested tropical regions lack capacity to deliver fire-free alternatives to slashand-burn for hundreds of thousands or millions of smallholders. In this paper we examine the potential for a transition away from slash-and-burn by smallholders as an unexpected co...
Multi-level governance arrangements have played a key role in recent dramatic reductions in defor... more Multi-level governance arrangements have played a key role in recent dramatic reductions in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, but why have they been more effective in some municipalities than others? In this study, we contribute to this understanding by analyzing the governance arrangements and the outcomes of environmental policy-making in six municipalities in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon. We understand the municipal-level to be an essential scale for translating policy-making from higher levels to on-the-ground decision-makers. The six cases selected for this study include contiguous municipalities that had differing outcomes from responses to decentralization of anti-deforestation policies initiated in 2008. We employ satellite imagery analysis of deforestation dynamics at the property level between 2004 and 2014, and match these data with municipal policies carried out over the same time period, such as implementation of the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR, ...
The ‘frontier’ is central to a new wave of development scholarship, but the broad deployment of t... more The ‘frontier’ is central to a new wave of development scholarship, but the broad deployment of the concept has blurred several key dimensions of frontier development. We focus on the Brazilian Amazon to synthesize classical frontier theory and emerging perspectives with special attention to the role of governance in frontier development. Since 2004, primary deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined over 70 percent while agricultural production in the region has increased. Contrary to narratives that view this transition as the result of ‘frontier governance’ – i.e., the imposition of order on a pre-existing frontier – we propose the concept of a ‘governance frontier,’ which recognizes the role of politics in constructing and transforming frontier spaces. This concept politicizes economic accounts of frontier development and spatializes abstract notions of governance. We employ a ‘follow the policy’ methodology to trace the evolution of a governance frontier in the eastern Brazilian Amazon, drawing on original fieldwork across four Amazonian municipalities and inside an environmental non-governmental organization. We show that a key feature of the Amazonian governance frontier has been a distinct geographical configuration of ‘model municipalities’ that function as nodes of policy experimentation, legitimation, and transfer. Our findings support an integration of frontier theory and governance theory in a place-based, political geography approach to regional political-economic transformation, which demands greater attention to the political dimensions of frontiers and to the spatial dimensions of governance.
Wildfires pose a major threat to the integrity of the planet’s remaining tropical forests, whose ... more Wildfires pose a major threat to the integrity of the planet’s remaining tropical forests, whose flammability is increased by continued fragmentation and over-exploitation of timber, combined with more frequent and severe droughts from a changing climate. Forest fires also jeopardize the effectiveness of investments in forest conservation from carbon finance, in addition to having the potential to cause serious health problems in rural populations. Consequently, the use of fire in tropical agricultural – traditionally used as a labour-saving method of clearing fallow appears increasingly incompatible with both forest conservation and sustainable development for the very communities who depend upon its use. Yet governments in forested tropical regions lack capacity to deliver fire-free alternatives to slashand-burn for hundreds of thousands or millions of smallholders. In this paper we examine the potential for a transition away from slash-and-burn by smallholders as an unexpected co...
Multi-level governance arrangements have played a key role in recent dramatic reductions in defor... more Multi-level governance arrangements have played a key role in recent dramatic reductions in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, but why have they been more effective in some municipalities than others? In this study, we contribute to this understanding by analyzing the governance arrangements and the outcomes of environmental policy-making in six municipalities in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon. We understand the municipal-level to be an essential scale for translating policy-making from higher levels to on-the-ground decision-makers. The six cases selected for this study include contiguous municipalities that had differing outcomes from responses to decentralization of anti-deforestation policies initiated in 2008. We employ satellite imagery analysis of deforestation dynamics at the property level between 2004 and 2014, and match these data with municipal policies carried out over the same time period, such as implementation of the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR, ...
The ‘frontier’ is central to a new wave of development scholarship, but the broad deployment of t... more The ‘frontier’ is central to a new wave of development scholarship, but the broad deployment of the concept has blurred several key dimensions of frontier development. We focus on the Brazilian Amazon to synthesize classical frontier theory and emerging perspectives with special attention to the role of governance in frontier development. Since 2004, primary deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined over 70 percent while agricultural production in the region has increased. Contrary to narratives that view this transition as the result of ‘frontier governance’ – i.e., the imposition of order on a pre-existing frontier – we propose the concept of a ‘governance frontier,’ which recognizes the role of politics in constructing and transforming frontier spaces. This concept politicizes economic accounts of frontier development and spatializes abstract notions of governance. We employ a ‘follow the policy’ methodology to trace the evolution of a governance frontier in the eastern Brazilian Amazon, drawing on original fieldwork across four Amazonian municipalities and inside an environmental non-governmental organization. We show that a key feature of the Amazonian governance frontier has been a distinct geographical configuration of ‘model municipalities’ that function as nodes of policy experimentation, legitimation, and transfer. Our findings support an integration of frontier theory and governance theory in a place-based, political geography approach to regional political-economic transformation, which demands greater attention to the political dimensions of frontiers and to the spatial dimensions of governance.
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