The Scale of Forest Transition: Amazonia and the Atlantic Forests of Brazil

Applied Geography 32 (2012) 12e20 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog The scale of forest transition: Amazonia and the Atlantic forests of Brazil Robert Walker Department of Geography, Michigan State University, USA abstract Keywords: This article adapts a general equilibrium model that provides a spatial solution for land use, labor Forest transition allocation, and product markets in a two good economy. The adaptation, based on von Thünen, considers Deforestation the multi-regional case, and solves for two regions, one industrial and the other, a newly opened agri- Amazonia cultural frontier. The conceptual framework is considered with reference to Brazil, where forest recovery Globalization Atlantic rainforest in the Atlantic Rainforest occurs simultaneously with forest losses in Amazonia. Simulation results of the theoretical model are given, demonstrating the impacts of comparative advantage in regional agriculture on the spatial system. The main theoretical interest of the article, aside from providing a formal spatial statement, is to define a distinction between aggregate forest transition (A-FT), when the area of all forests in a multi-regional system increases with the advent of trade relations, and regional forest transition (R-FT), when forest recovery is spatially constrained, and depends on forest losses elsewhere. Thus, the article addresses the role of scale in defining forest transition, and does so by representing spatial dynamics with a formal model. It also suggests that forest transition privileges one biome at the expense of others, and that a concept of landscape turnaround is more germane from a wildlands conservation perspective. The article closes with a discussion of Brazil, and how its forests in Amazonia and along the Atlantic will fare in the coming years. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction The present paper belongs to the theoretical side of the FT literature. It addresses a basic issue that has arisen in a number of Global forest loss continues to concern the world community, studies regarding scale, and the spatial domain over which FT given the value of forest ecosystems, particularly tropical ones, to manifests. Walker (1993) notes that international trade relations biodiversity maintenance and organic carbon storage. Conse- and population flows, under globalization, play a considerable role quently, a large literature now addresses both the drivers and in determining whether or not a forest transition is likely to occur implications of forest destruction. That said, a number of cases of in specific places. This observation has been corroborated and forest expansion have been observed, in a process referred to as the extended in other studies showing how regions and even entire ‘forest transition,’ the spatial recovery of forest ecosystems after countries can facilitate distant land use change processes by prolonged periods of agricultural land use (Mather, 1992; Walker, allowing people to migrate or by providing the import of agricul- 1993). As with deforestation, a large literature now addresses tural commodities (Robbins & Fraser, 2003). In other word, forest transition, providing both case studies and conceptual a long-settled area can release land to successional processes if frameworks aimed at understanding the social and economic agricultural populations leave, and if locally-consumed produce is processes that generate it (e.g., Barbier, Burgess, & Grainger, 2009; sourced from somewhere else (Meyfroidt & Lambin, 2009; Pfaff & Perz, 2007; Perz & Skole, 2003; Redo, Bass, & Millington, 2009; Walker, 2010). Rudel, Bates, & Machinguiashi, 2002; Walker, 2008). Occurrence The prime goal of the present article is to develop a model that of forest transition (FT) in many parts of the world has raised hopes situates FT within a multi-regional context, thereby enabling that macro-scale forces of economic development will bring about a direct treatment of the scale issue. As such, the model provides a spontaneous solution to the deforestation problem now affecting a theoretical counterpart for studies identifying FT in the presence the tropics (Chomitz, 2006). of inter-regional (and international) trade relations and labor movements. Although the empirical possibility of FT at global scale is not addressed, the article alludes to precisely this outcome. It does so by placing land use change processes in regionally distinct E-mail address: [email protected]. places which, when aggregated, may reveal FT in the aggregate, or 0143-6228/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.10.010 R. Walker / Applied Geography 32 (2012) 12e20 13 among the regional building blocks of the large-scale system. The World System paper’s illustrative application addresses FT within individual regions of a country, and then in the country as a whole on the basis of aggregating the regional land use systems. In principle, aggre- Global North Global South gation could continue to explicitly consider global FT. A secondary goal of the paper is to demonstrate the explanatory power of the spatial model of von Thünen, which has received wide attention by land change science, but primarily in statistical studies of deforestation. Theoretical development and applications to land aggregation abandonment processes are mostly lacking. The Borlaug hypothesis posits an implicit Thunian construct in describing land sparing as a retraction of the agricultural margin (Borlaug, 2007; Rudel et al., Nation 1 Nation N 2009). Similarly, scarcity of timber products raise prices of forest- based products, allowing a Thunian-style forest recovery against retreating agriculture (Barbier et al., 2009). The present paper considers retraction of the agricultural frontier in an explicitly Thunian framework, and does so in a spatially complex manner with multiple regions, and land use aggregation. region 1 region 2 … region n region 1 region 2 … region n The article is organized as follows. The next section opens with a brief discussion of forest transition and terminology, then Fig. 1. Scales from region to the World System. considers the issue of scale in undertaking studies of FT. The paper moves on then to address the case of Brazil, which appears to the predilections of the researcher, a fact that complicates efforts at manifest a complex situation including a regional FT within generalization across different studies. As has been pointed out, a context of national forest loss. A discussion of von Thünen’s social and behavioral processes determining the age of secondary theory, and its suitability to describing land change processes in regrowth in a woodlot are different, in scale and magnitude, from Brazil, follows. This motivates the presentation of a model based on those associated with the recovery of New England’s forests in the the Thunian formulation provided by Nerlove and Sadka (1991), 19th century (Pfaff & Walker, 2010; Walker, 2008). henceforth referred to as NS. The paper implements the model, and That scale of process conditions causal explanation has obvious considers implications of model output for environmental policy in implications for theory. Forest recovery over restricted spatial Brazil and the prospects for forest transition. A brief conclusion realms may be explained by completely different factors that those ends the paper. driving a broad-scale process. Further, the more highly constrained the space, the greater the impact of external factors. An extreme Forest transition and scale version of this latter observation is that deforestation in one place may actually enable FT somewhere else through external relations, Before proceeding to the main points of the section, a discussion such as trade (Pfaff & Walker, 2010; Robbins & Fraser, 2003). This is of terminology is necessary. Specifically, FT refers to spatial of practical significance, given that the policy community views FT recovery of forest lands, due to a variety of factors promoting as a weapon in the fight against tropical deforestation (Chomitz, agricultural abandonment. From the perspective of land “sparing,” 2006). If FT takes place as an endogenous process with no the releasing of land from agriculture with reallocation to natural external impact outside its area of occurrence, then it unambigu- states capable of providing environmental services, FT, restricted by ously promotes expansion of forest-based services and amenities. its very name to forest ecosystems, is conceptually limited. Agri- Alternatively, if FT depends on deforestation somewhere else, we culture encroaches on savannas, prairies, and woodlands, systems are in the conundrum of a zero sum, and policy benefits in one that may have high states of endemism and biodiversity. Recovery place may be offset by policy downsides not immediately apparent. of such ecosystems contributes to the stock of wildlands, and is in Spatial economics suggests that new trade relations enabled by the interest of biodiversity conservation worldwide. Walker (1993) transportation investments enable regional specialization, and the uses the term landscape turnaround in order to represent broad- simultaneous emergence of industrial regions and “breadbaskets” scale land transformations not specific to ecosystem type. Although (Fujita, Krugman, & Venables, 1999). One land cover implication is the present paper maintains FT as a label for the processes under that FT may be observed locally,

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