The Colonization of the Amazon

by Almeida, Anna Luiza Ozorio De

• ISBN13: 9780292711464
• ISBN10: 0292711468
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1992-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

Deforestation in the Amazon, one of today' top environmental concerns, began during a period of rapid colonization in the 1970s. Throughout that decade, Anna Luiza Ozorio de Almeida, a Stanford-trained economist, conducted a complex and massive economic study of what was going on in the Amazon, who was investing what, what was gained, and what it cost in all its aspects. The Colonization of the Amazon , the resulting work, brings together information on the physical, demographic, institutional, and economic dimensions of directed settlement in the Amazon Basin and raises significant questions about the gains and losses of the settlers, the reasons for these outcomes, and the economic rationale behind the devastation of the rainforest. Particularly illuminating is Almeida' exploration of the role of the frontier in Brazil and her distinction between types of migrants and migrations. She concludes that the political costs avoided by not undertaking agrarian reform are being paid by devastating the Amazon, with the conflict between distribution and conservation steadily worsening. Today, it can no longer be circumvented.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
The Decade of Colonization	p. 1
The Dimensions of the Frontier
Rural Frontier and Urban Frontier	p. 15
Occupation and Availability of and in the Amazon	p. 31
Agricultural Suitability of Amazon Soils	p. 44
The Closing Frontier	p. 53
The Frontier and the State
The Role of the Brazilian State on the Amazon Frontier	p. 65
Spatial Homogenization of the Amazon	p. 70
Directed Settlement	p. 85
Complementing Institutions	p. 103
The Cost of Directed Colonization	p. 111
The Frontier and the Market
The Expansion of the Market	p. 121
The Economic Dynamic of Colonization	p. 129
The Appropriation of Agricultural Surplus	p. 147
Colonists' Market Response	p. 163
Frontier Merchants	p. 181
The Colonists
The Appropriation of Income in Directed Colonization	p. 208
Costs and Benefits	p. 234
Market Segmentation	p. 246
Agricultural Strategies	p. 264
Differentiation on the Frontier	p. 283
Itinerancy and Adaptation to the Amazon	p. 307
Colonization and Agrarian Reform: The Current Debate	p. 317
Postscript: The Many Dimensions of the Amazon Frontier	p. 331
Glossary	p. 335
Bibliography	p. 339
Index	p. 365
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