Agrarian Structure and Land-cover Change Along the Lifespan of Three Colonization Areas in the Brazilian Amazon

Transcription

1 World Development Vol. 37, No. 8, pp , 29 Ó 29 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved 35-75X/$ - see front matter doi:1.116/j.worlddev Agrarian Structure and Land-cover Change Along the Lifespan of Three Colonization Areas in the Brazilian Amazon THOMAS LUDEWIGS Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT), Indiana University, IN, USA ALVARO DE OLIVEIRA D ANTONA Faculdade de Ciências Aplicadas, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT), Indiana University, IN, USA EDUARDO SONNEWEND BRONDÍZIO Department of Anthropology, Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT), Indiana University, IN, USA Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, USA and SCOTT HETRICK * Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT), Indiana University, IN, USA Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, USA Summary. We analyze three aging state-led land reform projects in Amazônia, as, through time, lot turnover, consolidation, and fragmentation differentially impact the spatial composition of agrarian structure and land use. Data include satellite imagery, GIS layers, and interviews with 64 farmers. Lot turnover rates of 72% and increases of.31 in Gini indexes show active land markets resulting in intrasettlement urbanization. Deforestation rates are positively correlated with property size and cattle herd size in all study sites, resulting in land aggregation and intrasettlement urbanization but are not related to land titles. Privatization of public lands in the Amazon re-enforces land inequality gaps instead of reducing them. Better models are needed. Ó 29 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words land reform, deforestation, lot turnover, Amazon, Brazil, Latin America 1. INTRODUCTION From 197 to 1999, almost 7, families were settled through land reform programs in Brazil (INCRA, 2, using both redistributive and colonization data 1 ), with 37, settling from 1995 to 1999 (Sparovek, 23). However, and despite social movements pressure and government efforts to decrease the huge gap in land distribution existent in the country, Gini index of actual land ownership concentration was estimated at.84 2 (Hoffman, 22), remaining among the highest in the world. What is the fate of public land in Brazil, and in particular in Amazônia? How much of it is being devoted to land reform under the premise of fighting inequality of access to land, but is actually working as a frontier expansion mechanism that re-enforces the land distribution gap? A recent study on lot turnover and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (Campari, 22) showed Gini index increases ranging from.14 to.42 in five of six land reform settlement projects (in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará) during 1348 * The authors want to thank the Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT) and the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC), both at Indiana University, for training opportunities and financial support. Fieldwork was made possible thanks to grants from LBA-NASA (NCC5-334, NCC-695 and NNG6), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA6GP344), National Institutes of Health (HD /7), and CIPEC/National Science Foundation (SBR ). We also thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico for supporting the first author during his training in the USA. The School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University was also very helpful in providing opportunities to finance this study and to cover travel costs. We thank Darla Munroe and other participants in the workshop held in Berlin, May 25 27, 26, for important feedback on this paper, and the editors for organizing this event, which was a key for bringing our ideas together. Special thanks to Joanna Broderick/CIPEC for her careful editorial work. Last, but not least, our warm thanks go to the ones who are writing the land reform story in Brazil, and to all those who answered our interview questionnaire. Final revision accepted: August 7, 28.

2 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LAND-COVER , thus showing clear evidence of land reconcentration in these areas. Lot turnover is connected to a wide range of social and environmental problems, such as lot abandonment, failure of investments, land conflicts, migration to urban areas, deforestation, and resource depletion. Explanatory models of lot turnover include the frontier expansion model (Alston, Libecap, & Mueller, 1999; Ozório de Almeida & Campari, 1995), also referred as the Turnover Hypothesis of Deforestation (Campari, 22), and the neoclassical economic approach, in which, under favorable institutional settings, market forces select the most competitive farmers and determine the most efficient size of agricultural property (Binswanger & Deininger, 1997; Deininger, 1999). We argue, however, that these models cannot be used to effectively address changes in the agrarian structure and landscape of government-sponsored settlements in the Amazon, because: (1) they are based on a broader context of frontier expansion, which includes spontaneous colonization areas; (2) they do not take into account the differences in social and political power among stakeholders competing for land resources, nor the dynamism and multiplicity of factors driving frontier expansion in the Amazon; and (3) favorable institutional settings are absent in most frontiers. These aspects might be regarded as far from the ones envisioned by the original goals of land reform programs. The main objective of this paper is to understand changes in the agrarian structure of aging state-led land reform projects in the Brazilian Amazon, and the relationship with land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) in these areas. We define agrarian structure as the pattern of land distribution among landholders, including the land tenure system and the demographic distribution in agricultural settlements. We will address specific land-use processes that result from lot turnover and are mediated by the markets for agropastoral products and the local institutional setting (e.g., land tenure). We believe that while these processes are extremely relevant in explaining the actual demographic and land distribution structures as well as land-cover change in settlement projects in Amazônia, they have not been adequately addressed in the LULCC and land reform literature for the region. Lot turnover and land concentration are interrelated but are distinct processes. We define lot turnover as the transfer of a farm lot from one family to another. This transference may be through selling, exchanging, or other arrangements. In colonization settlements, lot turnover usually involves concession of use rights through purchase receipts. While many lots are turned over as individual units, others are aggregated to neighboring lots to form a new, larger property, depicting a process we refer to as lot consolidation. Yet the reduction in the number of landowners in a settlement project, observed in studies that examine the land area per household, is referred as land concentration. When individuals purchase lots in different areas (i.e., lots that do not share boundaries), land concentration occurs without lot consolidation. Some authors refer to this process as land reconcentration, that is, a previous large farm is divided into farm lots (e.g., during redistributive land reform) and later purchased by a single owner, thus reconcentrated (Campari, 22). Two other equally relevant processes occurring in settlement projects are lot abandonment and lot fragmentation (when the lot is subdivided into smaller units). In this paper, we present a cross-sectional analysis of three state-led agricultural settlements in the Amazon: Altamira and Santarém, located in the State of Pará and established mostly in the early 197s, and Porto Acre, located in the State of Acre and established in the early 198s. Our fieldwork consisted of 64 interviews focusing on household demographic structure and land use. A spatial analysis of land-cover change at the property level and throughout the landscape was conducted through classification of remotely sensed imagery and GIS techniques. Deforestation rates were extracted for each lot by overlaying property grids adapted from the National Agency for Land Reform (INCRA) maps on transition maps depicting deforestation events from 197 to 23. This paper is organized as follows: we first present a background on land reform policies worldwide and some critiques focused on Latin American countries, especially Brazil. Next, we discuss the colonization process in Brazilian Amazônia, as part of the national Land Reform Program, focusing on the processes leading to lot turnover and those resulting from it. We then present our study sites, data, and analytical strategy, followed by an examination of relationships between changes in land distribution patterns and changes observed in land cover across the three settlement projects. A microlevel analysis follows, in which household interviews are used to address land tenure issues and how it relates to changes in the agrarian structure and in land-use/land-cover patterns. Last, we discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our findings to the actual model of land reform in the Amazon and in Brazil. More specifically, we consider that the experience gained so far might lead to better informed models, with increasingly stronger community participation addressing the limitations of centralized programs (discussed also by Sikor and Müller and others in 29). Our view is that more studies addressing the linkages between land distribution and the environmental outcomes of land reform programs are needed. Also, while land reform policies and their related consequences have been extensively analyzed at the regional and national levels, there is a plenty of evidence of significant intraregional variation in the role played by socioeconomic and environmental factors, hence there is a need for complementary local-scale studies (Brondízio, 25). A systemic view into the interactions among these factors is important for a better understanding of the trends shaping LULCC trajectories in expanding frontiers, explaining the recurrent failure of agrarian reform programs, as well as informing policies so they can more capably balance conservation and development goals. 2. BACKGROUND (a) Land reform from a historical perspective Many different types of land reforms have been implemented throughout the world. Political, socioeconomic, and biophysical factors that shape particular regions make land reform processes unique (Barraclough, 21). While some resulted in effective changes in the agricultural sectors (e.g., Japan and Korea), others have been limited to the existent sociopolitical and institutional structures (most of Latin America) and produced only mediocre results from both redistributive and efficiency perspectives (Ranieri, 23). Every land reform proposition, however, involves redefinition of roles and redistribution of power among political sectors in a society, and is marked by the polarization of debates. Land reform and resettlement programs have been affecting human environment interactions and economies for centuries (Sandwell, 1955). The impact of such programs on land-use and on land-cover change has long been debated, especially when participants migrate to regions they are not familiar with and use production systems not adapted to their local environment. In Indonesia, for example, unsuitable agricultural

3 135 WORLD DEVELOPMENT practices resulting from poorly planned resettlement programs were responsible for unprecedented deforestation and soil degradation (Whitten, 1987). Centralized land reform programs implemented in Latin America in the last 4 5 years have been criticized for many reasons. According to de Janvry and Sadoulet (1989), they often lacked the political will to perform a de facto land distribution reform, and agricultural modernization policies in the 197s and 198s strengthened existing political and economic structures (e.g., favoring largeholders with agricultural subsidies) that prevented land reform policies from being effective. From an economic perspective, inflated costs of land purchases and redistribution have made land reform too expensive. Also, there was a lack of well-delineated agricultural production projects supported by investments in infrastructure and studies on markets and commercialization (Deininger, 1999). From an institutional standpoint, technical assistance and credit support to settled families have been offered only by governmental agencies and not by the private sector. Such services are often doomed to ineffectiveness or non-existence; also, excessive government control over land commercialization has inhibited the development of land markets (Deininger, 1999; Sikor and Müller, 29). An alternative approach to government-centralized land reform programs is the negotiated, market-assisted land reform, which is implemented in some Latin American countries (including Colombia and Brazil), with the financial support of the World Bank (Deininger, 1999). Under this program, beneficiaries are trained and receive subsidized credit support to choose and purchase their own land. Municipalities are responsible for managing investment funds and for presenting productive projects, which are normally prepared by private agencies in collaboration with farmer unions. In Brazil, land concentration dates from the colonial period, and land reform propositions have been part of government discourses for at least the last 6 years. Unequal access to land is connected to land conflict and to the emergence of social movements such as the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) (Comparato, 23; Simmons, Walker, Arima, Aldrich, & Caldas, 27). While most analysts agree that something needs to be done to revert this historical inequality gap, there is much debate on what actions should be part of an effective land reform protocol. Considerable work has been done to address the philosophical and ideological issues at stake (Abramovay, 1996; Ranieri, 23; Tura & Costa, 2) and the socioeconomic outcomes of the existing land reform settlement projects (de Janvry & Sadoulet, 1989; Deininger, 1999; Sparovek, 23; Futemma & Brondízio, 23). However, and as mentioned above, more studies addressing the linkages between land distribution and the environmental outcomes of land reform programs are needed. (b) Lot turnover and deforestation in the Amazon Brazilian policies of Amazon colonization have been heavily criticized for threatening the world s most valuable biodiversity realm (Fearnside, 21; Hecht, 1985). Massive conversion of forests into cattle ranches was promoted by the government during the 197s 198s through colonization initiatives and highly subsidized credit loans (Hecht, 1985). Colonization projects under the administration of the National Integration Plan (PIN) aimed initially to settle up to 1, landless families along the Transamazon Highway. Families came from different parts of Brazil, but particularly the Northeast. Structural problems derived from poor planning, such as high turnover rates and implementation costs, led the government to replace PIN by colonization programs focused on the corporate cattle-ranching sector (Moran, 1981). Only 6 families were settled under PIN. Some of the major factors leading to high turnover rates in Amazonian settlement projects include the lack of all-weather roads (Moran, 199; Nelson, 1973), poor selection criteria of settlers by government agents (Moran, 1981), and the overall lack of environmental baseline studies and institutional support (Moran, 1981; Smith, 1982). Others found that the lack of property rights of pioneer settlers in spontaneous migration frontiers, such as in parts of southern Pará State, made them vulnerable to expulsion by ranchers who claimed the land as their own, often using force and armed thugs (Schmink & Wood, 1992). Alternatively, ranchers bought untitled land already deforested, and only later obtained land titles to it (Alston et al., 1999). As frontiers develop, rents for land tend to be much higher than returns on labor, and settlers are encouraged to sell their land and move on (Ozório de Almeida & Campari, 1995). Campari (22) believes that selling land might be the best economic option employed by many smallholders in the face of difficult conditions they experience in most Amazonian settlement projects, and he goes further to challenge the Turnover Hypothesis of Deforestation (THD), under which lot turnover in colonization settlements comprises the central mechanism for lot consolidation, which is followed by deforestation and frontier expansion. He argues that the frontier expansion process is much more complex than that portrayed by the THD and supports his claims with data showing that consolidation of lots into large cattle ranches is frequently done by initial settlers rather than outside investors. Deforestation is the primary mechanism of establishing informal rights to land in the Amazon frontier (Alston et al., 1999; Hecht, 1985). Economic theory states that enforcement of formal property rights might be an effective way to reduce the uncertainty of returns on present investments. Schneider (1995) stresses that land titling policies in the Amazon can thus curb deforestation levels by reducing the need of land clearance as a land claim tool. Also, and according to Schneider, such policies would promote investments in agricultural production and more effective redistribution of wealth among the rural poor. A similar logic has been proposed as a fundamental development tool in Peru (de Soto, 22) and Africa (see articles by Peters and Place in 29). Empirical evidence of land titling as an effective deforestation control strategy is rare and has failed to materialize after Wood and Walker s (21) detailed study in settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon. However, one might argue that the theoretical linkage between property rights and deforestation is much more relevant in spontaneous colonization areas of the Amazon, where uncertainty over land claims is considerably higher than in settlement projects. Tropical deforestation is a complex phenomenon to study. While some hypothesized relationships are supported by empirical evidence, other relationships are supported only by statistical correlations, and others remain only in theory or under debate due to contradictory findings (Kaimowitz & Angelsen, 1998). Methodologically, there has been considerable advance in the study of LULCC over the past 15 2 years. Novel integrative methods linking farm- and settlement-level processes have been proposed, for instance, by McCracken et al. (1999), Brondízio et al. (22), and Moran, Brondízio, and McCracken (22). Integration of multitemporal remotesensing data and socioeconomic and demographic and landuse surveys within a GIS spatial framework provides a systemic view that links multiple processes occurring within and among settlement projects in the Amazon. The incorporation of such

4 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LAND-COVER 1351 integrative methods and principles to an already existing body of demographic theory helped to frame the Household Life- Cycle Theory (HLT), which might be a useful tool for approaching research questions involving agricultural frontier contexts (McCracken et al., 1999; Perz & Walker, 22). Several theoretical and methodological challenges remain to be addressed concerning the viability of future land reform programs. This is especially relevant if we consider that goals such as the promotion of agricultural development and the reduction of inequalities on access to land, which we understand as being important to land reform policies in Brazil, have been rarely met. From an environmental perspective, we know that forest and soil conservation are necessary for agricultural sustainability in land reform areas in the long term (Fearnside, 21). The impact of lot turnover on deforestation in settlement projects cannot be understood through the existent models (such as the THD and the frontier expansion model proposed by Alston et al. (1999)), because these models have been developed in spontaneous frontier areas, where the institutional setting is different from the one existent in most INCRA-born agricultural settlements. From a socioeconomic viewpoint, neoclassical economic theory informs us that competitive farmers and efficient lot sizes are naturally selected by market forces. Empirical findings from agricultural frontiers point, however, to other factors, such as distribution of power and unfavorable institutional settings, being the determinants of land redistributive outcomes (mainly the reproduction of the inequality gap previously existent; see Borras, 23 for a more detailed discussion of this topic). An alternative approach incorporating microlevel analysis, such as the HLT, might be able to contribute to a better understanding of the variables that determine changes in land cover and in the agrarian structure of settlements, especially if integrative methods are included as part of research protocol (VanWey, D Antona, & Brondízio, 27). 3. FIELDWORK AND METHODS (a) Study sites The three study sites may be visualized in Figure 1. The Humaitá settlement project was established in 1981 in Porto Acre, located in Acre State in the western Brazilian Amazon, in an area of more than 6, ha within what used to be seringal Humaitá (rubber extraction estate). Titles of the Brazilian Debt (TDA) were used by INCRA, to pay the Humaitá landlord. The estate was than divided into 948 lots, one for each settled family. Colonization of the second study site, Santarém, dates back to the boom of the rubber industry in the 19th century. Informal land claims were regularized by INCRA in the early 197s, when new colonization areas were also made available to newcomer farmer families. Official registers account for 4995 lots existing in Santarém by that time, occupying an area of over 185, hectares. The third site, Altamira, was colonized by INCRA in the early 197s as part of the PIN program along the Transamazon Highway. By the end of the decade, 3916 lots had been distributed among colonist farmers in an area of more than 43, ha of privatized public land. (b) Data Our analysis uses two sample sizes, as shown in Table 1: Dataset a was randomly sampled, whereas dataset b came from a stratified sample based on the time of arrival in the settlement and on the distances of lots to the local urban center. The first sample was used to calculate Gini indexes based on year of settlement implementation (or regularization, in some areas of Santarém) and 23, and to explore relationships between property size and deforestation. The second dataset includes retrospective interviews with farmers taken from 1997 to 25, depending on the site. Longitudinal datasets apply to Altamira ( , 21 and 25) and to Santarém (21 2 and 24 5), while trans-sectional data applies to Porto Acre. Interviews focus on the socioeconomic and demographic structure of the household in variables related to land use, such as percentages of lot allocated to different land-use types, and in variables related to the lot, such as lot size, possession of titles, and accessibility to markets. Land-cover change analysis uses Landsat MSS, TM, and ETM+ images from 197 to 23, divided into six intervals: , , , , , and While all intervals apply to the Altamira site, the earliest image for Porto Acre is Images from 1975 and 1996 are not available for Santarém. GIS layers include property grids produced by INCRA in the establishment of settlements and updated during fieldwork in 23 and 25. (c) Methods Each image scene included in our analysis was independently classified into different types of land-cover/land-use classes, based in vegetation structure and soil coverage. Details on the classification of these images can be found in Lu, Mausel, Batistella, and Moran (24) and Brondízio et al. (22). Afterward, classes were aggregated into forest and non-forest. Deforestation matrices were then obtained comparing the land cover of each image with the deforestation levels accumulated up to the previous image. Spatial analysis of land-cover change was conducted at both household and settlement levels. Overlay of property grids on deforestation transition matrices produced levels of deforestation for all periods at the lot level. Changes in land distribution patterns were studied through comparisons between original and actual property grids and information on land ownership extracted from field interviews. Gini indexes of land concentration and lot fragmentation were obtained through an online Gini index calculator (Wessa, 26), and were based on total land area by owner. Results were cross checked according to the following formula: P n P n i¼1 j¼1 G ¼ jx i x j j ð1þ 2n 2 x 4. LAND DISTRIBUTION AND LAND COVER CHANGE Lot turnover figures for the three settlements are presented in Table 2. These data show an active land market for all regions. We do not know how many times each lot was subjected to sale after the first turnover. Lot turnover is higher in Altamira and Santarém, which is expected since these settlements were established more than a decade before Porto Acre. Time of arrival of settlers in the three study sites are shown in Table 3. Interestingly, Santarém, which has been occupied the longest, also has the highest rates of family arrivals after 2. Porto Acre, the site with the most recent occupation, shows the lowest rates of family arrivals after 2. Deforestation matrices for the three sites also can be seen in Figure 1, while quantitative information on deforestation trajectories is presented in Figure 2. Note that deforestation starts near roads and advances throughout the interior of lots

5 1352 WORLD DEVELOPMENT Figure 1. Study sites. Site Table 1. Sample sizes Data on land distribution and land cover (n = 165) Data on household socioeconomic variables and land use (n = 64) Porto Acre Santarém Altamira Table 2. Lot turnover since the beginning of settlement Study site Lot occupation (%) Continuous a More than one owner Porto Acre Santarém Altamira a Farm families who remain on the lots originally assigned by INCRA. as settlements mature. In Santarém, however, the irregular road network makes this trend less clear than in Porto Acre and Altamira. Note also that the conversion of forests to agropastoral uses in Santarém was highest during In Altamira, a pulse pattern of deforestation shows highest levels in the and periods. In Porto Acre it occurred in This follows the same order as time of occupation of these settlements. All figures are very right

6 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LAND-COVER 1353 Table 3. Time of arrival of settlers in the three study sites (% of total) Study site 197s or before 198s 199s 2s Porto Acre Santarém Altamira skewed, that is, relatively few parcels contribute to most of the observed deforestation. Total deforestation in 23 is shown in d of Figure 2. Santarém, with an average of 93% of deforestation per lot in 23, shows the highest conversion of forest to agropastoral uses among the three study sites. Altamira comes second with 73% of deforestation, and Porto Acre shows 65%, although variance in deforestation percentages among lots is higher in Porto Acre (St. dev. =.23), followed by Altamira (St. dev. =.21) and Santarém (St. dev. =.15). Santarém shows more outliers, however. Land distribution dynamics across the three study sites, measured by variations in Gini indexes from the establishment of settlements through fieldwork in 23 5, is presented in Table 4. All sites have shown growing rates of lot concentration since settlement formation. The level of lot concentration in Porto Acre more than tripled during , while in Altamira it increased almost fourfold during Santarém also shows a continuous increase in land concentration. However, the range between smallholders and largeholders was already high by settlement regularization in the early 197s. 3 Figure 3 shows percentages of families owning fragmented lots and one, two, and more than two lots. Lot fragmentation is highest in Santarém, and lot consolidation is highest in Altamira. Lot fragmentation is higher in the proximity of local villages and urban centers and in relation to second-generation dynamics that develop as settlements mature (land is shared within the members of the same family). Property sizes and land area per owner are shown in a and b of Figure 4. The average farm size in Altamira is 138 ha, but the average land area per owner is 225 ha. In Porto Acre, the average property size is 83 ha, and the average land area per owner is 85 ha. In Santarém, 2317 lots (46% of the total) are smaller than 2 ha, which is the size of the smallest lot distributed by INCRA in Porto Acre. Land concentration in Santarém was already present by the time INCRA regularized the settlement. At that time, the smallest properties (5% of the lots) shared 16% of the total settlement area, while the largest properties (5% of the lots) shared 28% of the total settlement area. Spearman s rho correlations between land distribution and deforestation are shown in Table 5. Significant positive correlations were found between total deforested area per lot and total land area, and between the former and the number of lots per owner, in all study sites (Table 5a). In other words, larger lots show larger deforested areas, which are also associated with land owners with higher number of lots. Yet for (a) Porto Acre (b) Santarém 1 1 Deforestation (% of lot) Deforestation (% of lot) before before (c) Altamira (d) Accumulated deforestation in 23 (% of lot) in all three study sites Deforestation (% of lot) Deforestation (% of lot) before Acre Santarém Altamira Site Figure 2. Deforestation trajectories: Percentage of land deforested by lot.

7 1354 WORLD DEVELOPMENT Table 4. Land distribution dynamics across three study sites Sites Original INCRA settlement Survey (23/25) Average area per owner (ha) St. dev. Gini Average area per owner (ha) St. dev. Gini D. Gini Porto Acre Santarem Altamira correlations using percentages of lots deforested instead of total deforested areas, only in Altamira was a positive relationship with the number of lots per owner found. In Santarém, on the other hand, significant negative values were found for both the number of lots per owner and total land area. This means that smaller lots and single lot owners show higher percentages of deforestation. No significant relationships were found in Porto Acre. This difference might be attributed to several reasons: (1) consolidated lots are used for cattle ranching (most of them extensively ) in Porto Acre and Altamira, which leave less area for forest, while in Santarém a significant portion of such 7 lots is still covered with secondary forests and gradually being converted to intensive soybean and rice plantations. (2) Family lots in Santarém have been cultivated for a longer time and, thus, have also experienced higher fragmentation, which makes smallholdings in Santarém much smaller than in Porto Acre; smaller lots show barely a minimum area of forest, if any, given family demands for agricultural lands. (3) The majority of forested lots in Porto Acre are owned by ex-rubber tappers, who are less likely to concentrate large areas of land, when compared to colonists or land investors. Ex-rubber tappers were found to have established a higher degree of dependence on forest products, thus valuing and keeping the forest on their lots; the cultural background in Santarém might not value forest conservation as much as it does for the rubber tapper group of settlers in Porto Acre. Porportion of properties (%) Porto Acre Santarém Altamira 5. LAND TENURE, LAND USE, AND AGRARIAN STRUCTURE In this section, we first describe the general pattern of land tenure arrangements adopted by INCRA for colonization projects in Brazil. Next, we present the distribution of titled land among households of our datasets, followed by some land-use data. Then, we discuss the relationship between possession of titles, land use, and land distribution. These findings are then used to discuss the roles of markets (for both land and agropastoral products) and institutions in determining changes in the settlements agrarian structure. (a) Land tenure arrangements in settlement projects Fragmented One lot 2 lots > 2 lots Figure 3. Actual land distribution by number of lots (percentage of total number of lots). Brazil s Land Statute (Law 433 of 3 November 1964) is the legal framework within which agrarian reform programs in these areas have operated. Under this law, INCRA expropriates latifundios (landholdings larger than 1, ha) and (a) 5 (b) Property sizes (ha) Land area/owner (ha) Area (ha) 3 2 Area (ha) Acre Santarém Altamira Site Acre Santarém Altamira Site Figure 4. Lot sizes and land area/owner (ha). The Y axis scale was purposely limited to 5 ha for better visualization; the outliers range goes up to 56 ha.

8 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LAND-COVER 1355 Table 5. Spearman s rho correlations between land distribution and land cover Site Correlation of total area deforested Number of lots (significance) Total land area (significance) (a) Total deforested area per lot Porto Acre.613 **.683 ** Santarém.73 **.961 ** Altamira.487 **.688 ** Correlation of percent of deforestation Number of lots (significance) Total land area (significance) (b) Relative deforestation (% of lot area deforested) Porto Acre Santarém.49 **.623 ** Altamira.224 **.27 * Significant at p <.5. Significant at p <.1. redistributes them among landless families. Most of the settlement projects in Amazônia, however, are colonization projects on public lands. Requirements for landless families to participate in land reform programs have varied over time, but generally involve proof of low income and not having benefited from previous programs. Enforcement of the latter condition has been questionable (Fearnside, 21), but there are signs that due to implementation of the new SIPRA (Land Reform Information Processing System) database this rule is finally being enforced (pers. comm. from INCRA s Rio Branco office). Lots in government-sponsored settlement projects are granted to settlers under favorable conditions, which have varied considerably through time and region. INCRA beneficiaries in our study area, for example, have not paid anything for their lots. In southern Pará State, however, and according to Fearnside (21), lots were sold in the 198s through subsidized loans with interest rates of around 6% (well under the inflation rate at that time) and a five-year grace period. Farmer families are initially granted use rights by INCRA to lots averaging 1 ha (197s settlements) or 5 6 ha (198s settlements). Integral property rights to land are earned only after land titles are issued, which takes place normally after 7 1 years of settlement. Cadastral costs, however, are high, and land registration might not be affordable to INCRA. Commercialization of untitled land is prohibited by law, but is de facto active and dynamic. Possession of titles in the three study sites is shown in Table 6. Porto Acre, the most recent settlement, shows the highest rate of titled land, while Santarém shows the lowest rates. Other documentation to land includes receipts of purchase by previous owners, tax receipts, INCRA s use authorization, and other forms of personal and public documentation. Table 6. Possession of titles for the three study sites (% of cases) Site Possession of title Title Title in name of other person(s) No title or other documentation Porto Acre Santarém Altamira (b) Land use Porto Acre shows the highest shares of land devoted to pasture, which is present in 95% of the properties. Smallhold farmers raise cattle for both dairy and beef purposes, while largehold farmers concentrate on beef. Forty-eight percent of the Porto Acre sample cultivates annual crops and 42% cultivates perennials. Santarém shows the highest percentages of land under secondary regrowth, which is probably related to being the oldest area of occupation among the three areas, and where shifting cultivation is more important as a livelihood strategy, when compared to the other two sites. Annual crops are present in 77% of the sampled farms, and perennial agriculture is found in 36%. Cattle ranching is practiced by 46% of the farmers. Lower rates of cattle ranching, when compared to the other two sites, are probably related to the scarce water availability in most of the Santarém site. Smallhold farmers concentrate in manioc, rice, and beans as cash crops, and largehold farmers focus mostly on cattle ranching and soybean agriculture. Altamira presents the highest proportions of land devoted to perennial crops (mostly cacao, coffee, and pepper), which are present on 72% of the farms. This is related to the higher percentages of fertile soils present in Altamira, and to several programs for promotion of crops such as cocoa and black pepper. Annual crops, mostly corn, manioc, and rice are present in 53% of the farms. Cattle ranching is practiced by 95% of the farmers in Altamira, with rates of land devoted to pasture varying directly with farm size. (c) Land titles, land use, and land distribution The land tenure structure in Santarém shows most smallhold families with no official titles to their lands, while secondary sources point to the opposite condition among largeholders. This absence of legally recognized property rights among smallholders is believed to be a major condition facilitating lot purchase and consolidation by soybean farmers, who are typically associated with lower transaction costs of acquiring title to irregularly purchased land. Such a picture reveals a rule rather than an exception in Amazônia, and has been extensively depicted elsewhere (Alston et al., 1999; Ozório de Almeida & Campari, 1995). Thus, land ownership, defined as land legally titled, has been found to be correlated to property size in both Santarém and Altamira. 4 In Porto Acre, however, our data show an opposite relationship, with smallholders being more likely to hold titles to land. A possible explanation lies in a differential response in Porto Acre to untitled land commercialization restrictions. This law is, however, hardly enforced, given that a large portion of the settling families suffers from poor infrastructure and overall living conditions, and wants to leave before titling services begin to be offered. Local government agents tend to allow untitled land purchases, given that the state itself is hardly effective in keeping up with its responsibilities and promises of maintaining reasonable road conditions and supply of public services. Thus, land buyers in Porto Acre might not be concerned about owning titles to their land, if the unwritten norm says titles are not necessary for sales. Title emission for irregularly purchased lots also might be more expensive in Porto Acre than in the other two sites. Another explanation lies, however, in the limited sample size for Porto Acre, which also shows the highest percentage in titled land. Titled possession of land is positively correlated to deforestation in Altamira, reflecting the results found in nearby

9 1356 WORLD DEVELOPMENT Uruará settlement (Wood & Walker, 21). This contradicts the previous widespread assumption that possession of property rights is helpful to control deforestation (Alston et al., 1999). However, as noted above, this assumption seems more relevant for spontaneous frontier colonization than for settlement projects. (d) Markets, institutions, and agrarian structure Land concentration has been occurring intensively in all the three sites but is associated with different processes. In Santarém, soybean farmers have been attracted to the region due to improvements in infrastructure and good agricultural conditions for soybean plantations. Land valorization followed immediately, as well as land consolidation into large soybean farms, regardless of proximity to the main paved road. Yet in Porto Acre and Altamira, we observed that the main driving force of land concentration is the increasing demand for pasture land due to increases in herd sizes. Such a trend raises land prices, 5 creating incentives for settlers to sell their lots. Also, earlier attempts of the local government to make Porto Acre the bread basket for Rio Branco, the local urban center, failed. Most farmers we interviewed identified the lack of infrastructure (roads and energy), public services (schools and health centers), and the discontinuity of agricultural programs (credit and commercialization) as the main problems affecting their livelihood and success in the settlement. As a result, several farmers went bankrupt and sold their lots to urban-based cattle-ranching entrepreneurs. While some agriculture still remains, most cropland was transformed into pasture. Altamira has the best soils of all the three sites. In the past, land allocation to cacao and annual agriculture was higher. Fluctuating prices for these crops led, however, to massive conversion of agricultural land to pasture, regardless of soil quality (Moran et al., 22). Additionally, we were told that many cacao and coffee producers in Altamira went bankrupt during the price crises of these crops, which might have forced them to sell their lots. Agricultural lots in neighboring local villages experienced intensive fragmentation into smaller parcels, which contributed to the urbanization process observed in all the three sites. Some lot fragmentation occurs, however, outside the villages, and is associated with intrafamily property divisions as newer generations take control over land decisions, especially in Santarém and Altamira. Major proportions of original and second-generation settlers are found, however, to have migrated to local urban centers or to neighboring settlements. Other families remained on their lots and were able to buy lots from neighbors to consolidate into larger properties; some maintain productivity of their lots but prefer to live in the local villages, which offer most public services and locally valued small businesses. The villages of Porto Acre also attract significant migration from Rio Branco, since they provide some alleviation of that city s problems, such as violence, water supply, and noise pollution. Our main results for these sites may be described as follows: Lot turnover has been highest in Altamira, with less than one forth of families remaining on their original lots, and has been lowest in Porto Acre, with about one-third of families remaining on their original lots. Altamira shows also the longest average time of residency since arrival in the settlement, while Porto Acre shows the shortest average time of residency since arrival in the settlement. Gini indexes are highest in Santarem (=.79), while increases in Gini indexes are highest in Altamira (from.14 originally to.53 in 23 5); Lot fragmentation is highest in Santarem (27% of lots), while lot consolidation is highest in Altamira (44% of properties composed by 2 or more lots). The largest average size of properties was found in Altamira, and the smallest one was found in Santarem, which shows also the largest variation in property sizes. Levels of deforestation follow the order of occupation of sites, with relatively few parcels contributing to most of the observed deforestation. Santarem shows the highest accumulated deforestation in 23, with 93% of lots deforested; Altamira comes second with 73% followed by Porto Acre with 65%. Total deforested area is highly positively correlated with property sizes in all three sites. Relative deforested area (% of lot) is negatively correlated with property sizes in Santarem and positively correlated with number of lots in Altamira. Land titling is highest in Porto Acre with nearly 75% of lots titled (mostly smallholders), and is lowest in Santarem with less than 5% of lots titled (mostly medium and largeholders. While cattle raising is the main driver for increased demand for land in Altamira and Acre, soybean cropping is the main driver for increased demand for land in Santarem. 6. IMPLICATIONS TO THE ACTUAL LAND REFORM MODEL IN BRAZIL We found that demographic fluxes associated with land ownership structure taking place at the three sites are far more complex than initially thought and reported elsewhere in the literature. A significant proportion of original settlers remains in the settlement and develops local urban seed sprawls (or villages), after selling or fragmenting and selling their lots initially received from INCRA. This finding contrasts with the earlier ones, where initial settlers who sold their lots were reported to migrate to either: (1) newer agricultural frontiers (Alston et al., 1999; Ozório de Almeida & Campari, 1995); (2) local urban centers (Browder & Godfrey, 1997); or (3) return to their regions of origin (Moran, 1981). Several kinds of occupational changes occurred for these groups of settlers in their transition to local village residents. Many changed from agropastoral activities to local business owners and employees, public services employees, and hourly wage workers in the local ranching and timber sectors. Others manage to maintain their lots, or parts of them, and continue cash crop and pastoral activities as their main or complementary source of income. Our study shows that despite official restrictions to commercialization of lots in settlement projects, informal land markets have been developing intensively in all the three sites. Lot consolidation follows not only investments in infrastructure, but also occurs where access to urban centers is problematic, resulting in higher rates of forest conversion to pasture. The lack of infrastructure and support mentioned above creates an incentive for farmers to shift from annual and perennial agricultural to cattle ranching, thus compromising in some instances initial goals of turning settlement projects into suppliers of a wide range of food products to local urban centers. This study aimed at linking land-use decision-making processes identified through household-level analysis to a broader view of the agrarian structure of settlement projects in the

10 AGRARIAN STRUCTURE AND LAND-COVER 1357 Brazilian Amazon. In this sense, the colonist footprint, which can be characterized by the consolidation and progressive expansion of productive activities (Brondízio et al., 22), is studied with the help of HLT and integrative methods of social sciences combined with remote-sensing and GIS techniques. This analysis is nested into broader theoretical tools deriving from frontier expansion cycles and lot turnover impacts on deforestation. The aim was to identify, among the outcomes, common trends on land-use and agrarian structure changes in state-led land reform settlements across the Amazon and aspects of individual sites that are theoretically relevant and have important policy implications. For example, our analysis shows that even with individual historical conditions varying significantly across sites, similar structural processes related to lot turnover, lot consolidation, lot fragmentation, and urbanization can be observed in the three sites. More specifically, active land markets are observed in all land reform areas, as well as intensive urbanization processes related to lot fragmentation and provision of public services concentrated in local villages. Also, common factors underpinning lot turnover, such as poor overall infra-structure conditions in early stages of settlement, and increased demand for new land for cattle (Altamira and Porto Acre) and soybeans (Santarém) in later stages of settlement development, are present across all sites. Increased demand for new land is clearly connected to expanding global commodity markets. Interactions of settlement variables specific to each condition, however, and mediated by local markets and institutions, lead to unique patterns of LULCC across sites. The Brazilian Land Reform Program has been an important driver of Amazon colonization and of agricultural expansion in the last three and a half decades. Given that this process is heavily charged with historical inequalities in access to land and political disputes among interest groups, the national government has been pressed for positive indicators of land reform actions. This leads to a primary demand on showing quantitative results: from 1995 to 21, more than 58, families were settled in an area of over 18.7 million ha, corresponding to some 4 settlement projects (INCRA, 22). This is by far the most aggressive land reform agenda ever put in practice in Brazil and among the most ambitious in the world (Sparovek, 23). According to Teofilo and Prado Garcia (23), the average price per hectare decreased from R$382 to R$264 during the same period. However, these authors point out that this price is not as low as one might expect (p. 23), since only 21.1% of this land had been previously in use, and that the average agricultural quality of land distributed is Type 5, meaning lands with complex conservation problems and... unsuitable for intensive use, but still adaptable to pastures and/or reforestation and/or wildlife (p. 22). Hence, qualitative results, such as the number of settled families who ultimately stay on the lots, and are economically successful, are not fully considered, compromising the de facto redistributive goals of land reform programs in Brazil. Many of the high turnover rates and associated increases of 225%, 49%, and 27% in Gini indexes observed in Porto Acre, Santarém, and Altamira, respectively, are probably derived from an inappropriate model of land reform, incapable of providing minimum conditions to incoming settler families to remain on their lots. In this sense, one might ask, are lot turnover and land concentration signs of a vicious cycle of uneven land distribution in Brazil? To what extent does history repeat itself? Our answer to the latter question is that it does to some extent, because of the skewed level of support received by settled farmers and the motives outlined above. However, the dynamic of demographic land distribution is complex, and includes continuous arrival and departure of settlers, intergenerational changes, fragmentation and a move from larger to smaller lots and to local villages, occupational change from producer to off-farm labor, and connectivity between urban and rural families (among others). In relation to the question stated in our Section 1 What is the fate of public land... in Amazônia? we know from census data that the percentage of public land in the northern region decreased from 3% in 197 to 7% in 1996, showing a substantial contrast when compared to the decrease of 7% to 3% in Brazil as a whole (Gasques, Conceicßão, & Bastos, 21, using IBGE data from 197, 198, and censuses). The environmental costs are substantial: forest conversion of some 63.8 million ha to agropastoral use (see Pacheco s article in this issue, all sizes of properties considered) leads to depletion of biodiversity, nutrients, and hydrological resources. Thus, the implications of our findings to the actual land reform model depend on what we consider as the main objective of the Land Reform Program in Amazônia and throughout Brazil. Is it to reduce the inequality gap in access to land, providing opportunities for landless families to engage in agricultural production and increase agricultural output? If yes, then we conclude that the actual land reform model fails to produce the expected results, given the trends in lot turnover and land reconcentration observed in our study. If, however, the main objective of land reform in the Amazon is to promote urbanization in rural areas, using rural families labor force as a triggering mechanism for frontier expansion, and compensate settlers with opportunities of capitalization from selling their lots, then we are inclined to say that the objectives of stateled land reform in the Amazon are being met. The question comes down, again, to the debate on the model of land reform we are looking for. Are we concerned about providing a temporal relief to the landless farmer problem and appeasing MST, while making sure public lands are privatized and converted slowly into large grain farms and cattle ranches? Or are we instead looking for a deeper change in the Brazilian agrarian structure, with effective incorporation of landless farmers into the agricultural production sector? In this case, it is our understanding that the actual land reform model is inadequate. According to Abramovay (1996), land reform would be more socially effective in Brazil if it had occurred before the urbanization boom of the 196s and 197s (which it could have helped to smooth out). Nevertheless, it is still a powerful tool to reduce rural poverty, if more consistent regional planning is implemented, and if community participation on defining goals and on taking responsibilities is more seriously considered and put in practice. An alternative mechanism of financing and execution of land reform programs would combine findings from this paper with others discussed in the literature: (1) selection of areas destined to land reform based on the criteria of environmental and economic sustainability of future settlements, in which focus is placed on areas served by all-weather roads and close to markets (Moran, 199), and on achieving consistency between environmental legislation by the Environmental Protection Agency of Brazil and INCRA, thus avoiding the regularization of settlements on irregularly occupied forested areas; (2) public private partnerships with more accurate studies on the capability to provide infrastructure investments and delivery of public services (see Nepstad et al., 24, for some examples); (3) incorporation of representatives of the civic society around community-based programs in all phases of implementation, as suggested by Sikor and Müller and in other contributions to this issue; for example, use of a polycentric

11 1358 WORLD DEVELOPMENT governance model based on multiple centers of decision making, formally independent of each other but under a structure of ordered relationships and rules, and with consumers as coproducers of public services (Ostrom, 1999); (4) diversified provision of technical assistance and agricultural credit support (also from the private sector) oriented toward the engagement of beneficiaries in agricultural markets (Deininger, 1999), while acknowledging the existence of active land markets in land reform areas; (5) fiscal incentives to cooperatives to establish processing plants and transformation industries of agricultural products; and (6) implementation of a land tax system based on social and environmental indicators, creating incentives for landowners to engage in sustainable projects (Moran, 199). Lot turnover and land concentration in the Amazon result from multivariate processes. Hence, a more comprehensive understanding of which policies would lead to improvements on social and environmental outcomes from land reform would certainly entail further research including but not limited to multi-agency networks, negotiated land reform programs, and community-based approaches. Furthermore, policy recommendations should be site specific and consider a combination among issues (1) (6) mentioned above. A challenge of conservation in the Amazon is to maintain forest cover outside parks. The challenge of land reform is to promote land redistribution that is compatible with economic sustainability, market integration, and long-term conservation of natural resources. There have been enough experiences in the Amazon to inform innovative governance approaches and promotion of rural development. Despite disagreements and problems, land redistribution and regularization are historical needs in Brazil and in the Amazon, and should continue to be a policy priority. NOTES 1. According to the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, unproductive agricultural land or rural property, not withstanding its social function, is subject to agrarian reform or private land expropriation (with indemnification) by the government for redistributive purposes among landless farmers. Colonization programs, on the other hand, refer to settlements on public lands (in the case of Brazil, mostly in the Amazon region). In this paper, we refer to land reform as including both agrarian reform initiatives (as defined above for Brazil s case) and colonization projects. 2. The Gini index was originally conceived as a measurement of income equity, where the minimum value of zero () corresponds to an equal distribution of wealth among any measured group, whereas the maximum value of one (1) corresponds to all wealth owned by a single individual. The Gini index might also be used to assess equity in land distribution, as in the case mentioned in the text. 3. 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