Colonist Land Use and Deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon

本研究的目的是调查影响厄瓜多尔亚马逊雨林中移民定居者土地利用和毁林的因素。该地区因其丰富的生物多样性被认为是世界上的“热点”之一，目前正在经历大规模的人为干预，其形式是农业殖民化，移民自发地沿着石油公司修建的道路流动。目前，保护环境和发展国家经济的目标冲突非常明显；过去十年拍摄的该地区的卫星照片生动地显示了森林的迅速砍伐。该项目建立在NSF之前的一笔赠款的基础上，该赠款用于收集419个殖民者家庭的关键信息。本项目将使用Tobit估计程序分析这些数据，以解释用于不同类型土地用途的移民土地的比例。这些比例将使用三组主要变量来解释：(1)家庭人口和社会经济特征，(2)农场的自然资源条件，以及(3)政策和制度背景。这项研究将为影响世界上最重要和最敏感的环境之一的殖民者行为的因素提供重要的新见解。因此，它将有助于我们对环境保护与经济发展之间存在深刻紧张关系的发展中地区因素相互作用的基本理解。研究结果应有助于制定更适当的政策，以促进该区域的可持续发展。

9320819 BILSBORROW The goal of this research is to investigate the factors influencing land use and deforestation by migrant settlers in the rainforest of the Ecuadorian Amazon. This area, which is considered to be one of the world's "hot spots" in terms of its rich biodiversity, is now undergoing massive human intervention in the form of agricultural colonization by spontaneous flows of migrants along roads built by petroleum companies. Currently, the conflicting aims of protecting the environment and economically developing the country are dramatically apparent; satellite photos of the region taken over the past decade vividly show rapid deforestation. This project builds on a previous grant from NSF which was used to collect critical information from 419 colonist households. This project will analyze those data using Tobit estimation procedures to explain the proportion of settlers' lands devoted to different categories of land use. These proportions will be explained using three major sets of variables: (1) household demographic and socio-economic characteristics, (2) natural resource conditions on the farm, and (3) the policy and institutional context. This research will provide important new insights into the factors influencing the behavior of colonists in one of the world's most important and sensitive environments. Thus it will contribute to our basic understanding of the interaction of factors in a developing area with a deep tension between environmental preservation and economic development. Results of the research should contribute to the development of more appropriate policies to promote sustainable development in the region.