Chapter 2: State and Trends
the case of Brazil deforestation in the Amazon fell from 27 772 square kilometres in 2004 to 5 831 square kilometres in 2015, a 79 per cent reduction (INPE 2015).
Expansion and intensification of animal grazing, such as cattle and sheep, as a result of the drivers described in Chapter 1, is also a pressure leading to land degradation in LAC. This expansion process is leading to forest clearing in some areas and to intensification in grassland areas in order to increase productivity, resulting in degradation of grassland ecosystems.
In some areas of the region, colonization for small-scale agriculture and grazing driven by rural-to-rural migration still remains a contributing factor to land clearing and ecosystem transformations, particularly in biodiversity-rich forest areas (Carr 2009; López-Carr and Burgdorfer 2013).
In addition to deforestation, the region is also experiencing reforestation and afforestation. Reforested areas in LAC are mainly plantations, but reforestation is also taking place in lands no longer suitable for agriculture, either because of land degradation or because of the costs required for transforming them in areas suitable for new agricultural production systems. In some instances, forest plantations have links to both deforestation and reforestation dynamics because, in some areas of the region, native forests are cleared to be replaced with exotic planted forests (More…23). Afforestation is a pressure in some of the grassland areas of the region where exotic species of trees are transforming the original grassland landscapes into forests (Buytaert et al. 2007; Farley et al. 2004; Hofstede et al. 2002a).
As introduced in Chapter 1, the expansion of tourism has the potential to be a sustainable alternative that promotes land stewardship through adequate management, generating incomes with less environmental impacts than other land management strategies. However, tourism is also resulting in pressures on existing land uses, usually displacing them to other areas. Furthermore, it has a potential to create social and cultural barriers that, in most instances, segregate spaces for tourists and local inhabitants, resulting in restrictions on
access to land resources. It might also increase the intensity of land management strategies in areas where traditional activities still take place (Dixon et al. 2001; Verner 2009).
Land governance and land concentration
The liberalization reforms of the 1990s produced greater decentralization of land governance (Ravikumar et al. 2013) and the formal recognition of land rights for some traditional communities (Pacheco et al. 2012) in the LAC region. However, land tenure in frontier regions remains highly contested (Borras et al. 2012) and unequal in a region that already has one of the most inequitable land distributions (Deininger and Byerlee 2012). This situation exacerbates land conflicts, as multiple actors compete for the same land in a context where property rights are still not thoroughly defined or enforced. It also presents challenges for the use of policy instruments such as payments for ecosystem services.
Land concentration means that there is a large group of people with very little or no land at all. Landless rural dwellers
exert pressure on remaining natural habitats
through the expansion of the agricultural frontier. Land owners with very little land holdings usually have little access to other resources and livelihood strategies other than agriculture. They therefore may not have the option of letting the land rest (return to fallow). This may lead to overexploitation of the soil, leading to degradation (Griffiths 2004). The expansion of agribusiness and the production of crops for export pose several risks for the region: food crops for internal consumption may be replaced by export commodities and biofuels, compromising food security for the rural poor.
Infrastructure development
Infrastructure development, roads or dams, are usually the first stage of habitat degradation as it allows the inflow, either spontaneous or planned, of landless rural inhabitants and large landholders. For example, with the building of the Inter-oceanic Highway inaugurated in 2011, with a total final cost of USD 2 800 million and a length of 5 404 kilometres, a
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