Agricultural Colonization and Ecological Destruction

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One of the processes by which human activity has most dramatically altered natural environmental conditions across the globe in recent decades has been the destruction of large tracts of tropical rainforest. Millions of acres have been cleared in the Amazon basin of South America. Considerable scholarly attention has focused on the biological, atmospheric, and hydrological ramifications of accelerated deforestation, but relatively little research has been conducted to identify and understand the attitudes that residents of the Amazon have toward the rainforests and the processes by which they clear land individually and as members of groups. This project will consist of a pilot study to refine survey instruments and will provide preliminary results to facilitate refinement of hypotheses for a larger study of the attitudes and actions of rainforest residents rainforest in the Sucumbios province of northeastern Ecuador. Surveys will be tested in interviews with members of roughly 400 households. These tests will determine the most effective means of gathering descriptive information about the demographic and economic characteristics and the land- and resource-use practices of settlers; they also will refine methods for effectively eliciting information about household attitudes regarding current status and future aspirations, the availability of resources, and the institutional and societal factors affecting individual activities. In addition to refining data gathering capabilities, results from the trial surveys will be used to improve a model that relates social and ecological processes. The project will be conducted in coordination with the Consejo Nacional de Desarrollo, an agency of the Ecuador government. This project will significantly improve our knowledge of the efficacy of specific surveying and interviewing approaches in settings like northeastern Ecuador. More importantly, it will provide a means for gathering valuable information about the characteristics of settlers who are clearing large tracts of tropical rainforest and the perceptions and attitudes that lead them to act in that way. The broader significance of this research therefore will be felt both with respect to our general understandings of how people value and use natural resourcesand also in our improved knowledge about of the ways in which social and economic processes contribute to dramatic changes in the natural environment.