Collaborative Research: Globalization, Deforestation, and the Cattle Sector of the Braziian Amazon

巴西亚马逊地区的森林砍伐对全球环境安全构成了威胁，因为它对碳循环和生物多样性的丧失具有潜在影响。该项目的重点是亚马逊地区森林砍伐的主要原因之一--该地区迅速扩张的养牛业。它试图解释这种快速扩张的原因，特别是揭示全球市场发挥的作用，采取部门办法，查明从亚马逊盆地的屠宰场到国内和国际市场的消费者需求，该行业的商品链联系。该项目的概念视角是政治经济学，它将亚马逊养牛业的增长解释为巴西农业全球化的征兆。项目研究将详细说明这一框架的要素：(1)描述巴西国家养牛业的结构和亚马逊生产的功能；(2)对导致亚马逊生产融入国家和国际市场网络的因素进行统计评估；(3)对亚马逊牛部门行为的演变进行比较历史分析，这在两个主要定居走廊都有明显表现。该项目还将对亚马逊地区的森林砍伐进行回归分析，具体涉及牧场和大豆。预期成果包括描述亚马孙牛产品市场的演变，对导致向国内和国际市场出口的因素进行统计评估，并说明亚马孙地区该部门增长的区域差异。此外，综合回归分析将证明牧场和大豆种植作为亚马逊砍伐森林的驱动因素的相对重要性。项目研究将填补关于亚马孙牛部门的出现及其对森林的影响的基本认识方面的重要空白。这个项目的前提是，部门增长只能在巴西国家工业及其随着时间的推移越来越多地参与全球牛产品市场的更大背景下才能解释。鉴于养牛场是亚马逊地区迄今大部分森林砍伐的罪魁祸首，鉴于它可能在未来几十年对森林构成重大威胁，了解其结构、功能和动态尤为关键。因此，该项目的成果最终将有助于形成旨在保护森林的环境政策。

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon represents a threat to global environmental security through potential impacts on the carbon cycle and loss of biological diversity. This project focuses on one of the leading causes of deforestation in Amazonia -- the region's rapidly expanding cattle industry. It seeks to explain this rapid expansion, and in particular to reveal the role that global markets have played, by taking a sectoral approach to identify commodity chain linkages in the industry, from slaughterhouses in the Amazon basin, to consumer demand in national and international markets. The project's conceptual lens is political economy, and it interprets growth of the Amazonian cattle sector as symptomatic of globalizing Brazilian agriculture. Project research will detail elements of this framework (1) by describing the structure of Brazil's national cattle industry, and the function of Amazonian production; (2) by statistically assessing the factors that have led to the integration of Amazonian production into national and international market networks; and (3) by producing a comparative historical analysis of the evolution of the Amazon's cattle sector behavior as manifest in two major settlement corridors. The project will also undertake a regression analysis of Amazonian deforestation that specifically addresses ranching and soybeans. Expected results include a description of the evolution of markets for Amazonian cattle products, a statistical assessment of factors leading to export to national and international markets, and an account of regional differences in the growth of the sector within Amazonia. In addition, the aggregate regression analysis will demonstrate the relative importance of ranching and soybean farming as drivers of Amazonian deforestation. Project research will fill important gaps in basic understanding about the emergence of the Amazonian cattle sector and its impact on the forest. The premise of this project is that sector growth can only be explained in the larger context of Brazil's national industry and its growing participation in global cattle product markets over time. Given cattle ranching is responsible for most of the deforestation to date in the Amazon, and given it is likely to represent a significant threat to the forest over the next few decades, understanding its structure, function, and dynamics is especially critical. The results of this project therefore, ultimately will contribute to the formation of environmental policy directed at forest conservation.