Land Use Dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

The articles presented in this special issue of Ecological Economics address the important theme of land use dynamics as it pertains to the Brazilian Amazon. Much environmental change is an ecological artifact of human agency, and such agency is often manifested in land use impacts, particularly in tropical areas. The critical problem of tropical deforestation is but one example of a land use dynamic; consequently, such problems are productively conceptualized in these terms. The present issue represents an explicit step in the direction of comprehending human encroachment into the tropical forest biome as a process of land use change. An attempt is also made to view forest environments in a humanized light. Anthropologists and at least one economic historian have long recognized that tropical forests have been inhabited by people for quite some time, without long-term degradation of the biome.

Citation

Walker, Robert. 1996. Land Use Dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Economics 18 :I-2