Doctoral Dissertation Research: Land Reform, Social Conflict, and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

热带森林砍伐是对全球和地方生物多样性、气候以及人类和环境可持续性的一个重大持续威胁。关于土地覆被和土地使用变化，特别是森林砍伐的讨论很多，但大多数处理这一问题的办法都忽视了群体动员的潜在贡献。这篇博士论文的研究项目将调查在巴西亚马逊东部地区的无地穷人在一个地区通常被称为南帕拉动员的环境影响。无地运动，许多个人运动的松散联盟，试图迫使巴西政府征用私有财产引用宪法法律规定的“非生产性”，林地的重新分配。通过对政府官员和私人财产所有者的访谈，遥感和地理信息系统，本研究有望揭示（1）无地运动土地占用的选择标准和（2）大财产所有者为避免财产被征用而采取的行动。这些研究结果可能会被用来帮助重新定义巴西的土地改革计划，以减少社会冲突和环境影响，以及建议新的战略，以分散在其他地区与土地有关的冲突和环境损害的目前事实上的地位。研究者希望证明，大的财产所有者为了避免国家主导的征用和无地运动对他们采取的行动而先发制人地砍伐森林，无地运动对土地改革活动的目标有一个非常明确的战略。本项目将描述社会运动和地方精英之间有争议的相互作用所导致的环境变化。随着这种相互作用的展开，双方都以牧场和其他农业取代森林覆盖，对环境产生了负面影响，而这种活动在世界许多地方长期被认为是不可持续的，而且利润微薄。随着农业在全世界继续发生变化，土地资源变得更加稀缺，与土地有关的冲突必将成为一个日益普遍的问题。本论文的研究将提供关于土地冲突双方的行为如何的见解。这些见解可以为研究区域及其他地区的土地改革和环境政策提供良好的基础。从更广泛的意义上说，这项研究也可能有助于了解人们如何决定使用和改变他们的环境，以及政治和社会互动如何定义当地生态。 该项目还可进一步从理论上阐明土地覆盖和土地使用变化是如何发生的。最后，这个博士论文研究改进奖将提供一个专门的学生进行扩展，独立的研究，为强大的研究生涯做准备的支持。

Tropical deforestation is a significant ongoing threat to the global and local biodiversity, climate, and human and environmental sustainability. Explanations of land-cover and land-use change, and particularly deforestation, have been legion, but most approaches to the issue have neglected the potential contributions of group mobilization. This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate the environmental effects of the mobilization of the landless poor in the eastern Brazilian Amazon in an area commonly referred to as the South of Para. The landless movement, a loose union of many individual movements, seeks to force the Brazilian government to expropriate private property by citing constitutional law that provides for the redistribution of "unproductive," forested land. Using interviews with government officials and private property owners, remote sensing, and geographic information systems, this study is expected to uncover (1) the selection criteria of landless movement land occupations and (2) the actions large property owners take to avoid the expropriation of their property. These findings may be used to help redefine the currently de facto status of Brazil's land-reform program in order to reduce social conflict and environmental impact as well as to suggest new strategies to diffuse land-related conflict and environmental harm in other regions. The investigators expect to show that large property owners deforest their property preemptively to avoid state-led expropriation and actions against them by the landless movement and that the landless movement has a very well-defined strategy for the targeting of land-reform activity.This project will describe the environmental change resulting from the contentious interaction between a social movement and local elites. As this interaction unfolds, both sides negatively impact the environment through the substitution of pasture and other agriculture for forest cover, an activity long recognized as unsustainable and only marginally profitable in many parts of the world. As agriculture continues to change throughout the world, and land resources become more scarce, land-related conflict is set to become an increasingly common problem. This dissertation research will provide insights regarding how actors on both sides of land conflict behave. These insights may provide a good basis for land reform and environmental policy in the study area and beyond. In a wider sense, this research may also contribute to basic knowledge about how people decide to use and modify their environments and how political and social interactions define local ecology. The project may also further theoretical formulations of how land-cover and land-use changes occur. Finally, this Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award will provide a dedicated student the support to conduct extended, independent research in preparation for a strong research career.