Severe Tropical Deforestation in the Amazon Largely Caused by Resettlement Projects

What's driving tropical deforestation? It's all about resettlement projects. Scientists have found that these projects are largely responsible for the disappearance of trees in the Amazon.

Agrarian and reform settlements have been created throughout the Brazilian Amazon since the early 1970s at an unprecedented scale. In this latest study, though, researchers have found that these projects are far from environmentally friendly.

The researchers looked at the effects of nearly 2,000 agrarian settlement areas on deforestation and forest degradation in the world's largest tropical forest region.

"Agrarian settlements have been widely hailed by Brazilian society as a socially responsible strategy to allocate land to the rural poor," said Mauricio Schneider, one of the researchers, in a news release. "But our research shows that allocating forested land results in severe levels of deforestation at the taxpayer's expense."

The researchers analyzed satellite imagery, which allowed them to quantify rates of natural vegetation conversion rates across settlements. The scientists also compared fire incidence and deforestation rates before and after the official occupation of settlements.

In the end, the researchers found that settlements are frequently established within protected areas, and that there's strong evidence that settlers produce illegal charcoal in these regions. The findings also show that massive amounts of deforestation are occurring.

The findings reveal that more attention should be paid to these programs. More specifically, they show that areas should be carefully chosen before given.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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