Peter Klepeis

Modeling tropical deforestation in the southern Yucatán peninsular region: comparing survey and satellite data

This paper presents some initial modeling results from a large, interdisciplinary research project underway in the southern Yucatan peninsular region. The aims of the project are: to understand, through individual household survey work, the behavioral and structural dynamics that influence land managers’ decisions to deforest and intensify land use; model these dynamics and link their outcomes directly to satellite imagery; model from the imagery itself; and, determine the robustness of modeling to and from the satellite imagery. Two complementary datasets, one from household survey data on agricultural practices including information on socio-economic factors and the second from satellite imagery linked with aggregate government census data, are used in two econometric modeling approaches. Both models test hypotheses concerning deforestation during different time periods in the recent past in the region. The first uses the satellite data, other spatial environmental variables, and aggregate socio-economic data (e.g., census data) in a discrete-choice (logit) model to estimate the probability that any particular pixel in the landscape will be deforested, as a function of explanatory variables. The second model uses the survey data in a cross-sectional regression (OLS) model to ask questions about the amount of deforestation associated with each individual farmer and to explain these choices as a function of individual socio-demographic, market, environmental, and geographic variables. In both cases, however, the choices of explanatory variables are informed by social science theory as to what are hypothesized to affect the deforestation decision (e.g., in a von Thunen model, accessibility is hypothesized to affect choice; in a Ricardian model, land quality; in a Chayanovian model, consumer–labor ratio). The models ask different questions using different data, but several broad comparisons seem useful. While most variables are statistically significant in the discrete choice model, none of the location variables are statistically significant in the continuous model. Therefore, while location affects the overall probability of deforestation, it does not appear to explain the total amount of deforestation on a given location by an individual.

Deforestation in the southern Yucatan peninsular region: an integrative approach

Abstract The tensions between development and preservation of tropical forests heighten the need for integrated assessments of deforestation processes and for models that address the fine-tuned location of change. As Mexico’s last tropical forest frontier, the southern Yucatan peninsular region witnesses these tensions, giving rise to a “hot spot” of tropical deforestation. These forests register the imprint of ancient Maya uses and selective logging in the recent past, but significant modern conversion of them for agriculture began in the 1960s. Subsequently, as much as 10% of the region’s forests have been disturbed anthropogenically. The precise rates of conversion and length of successional growth in both upland and wetland forests are tied to policy and political economic conditions. Pressures on upland forests are exacerbated by the development of infrastructure for El Mundo Maya, an archaeological and ecological activity predicated on forest maintenance, and by increased subsistence and market cultivation, including lands on the edge of Mexico’s largest tropical forest biosphere reserve. In this complex setting, the southern Yucatan peninsular region project seeks to unite research in the ecological, social, and remote sensing sciences to provide a firm understanding of the dynamics of deforestation and to work towards spatially explicit assessments and models that can be used to monitor and project forest change under different assumptions.

Neoliberal Policy and Deforestation in Southeastern Mexico: An Assessment of the PROCAMPO Program

Abstract A lingering question in economic geography is the degree to which there is a link between neoliberal policies and environmental degradation. Research is needed to relate such policies empirically to local-level decision making, both to evaluate their consequences and to contribute to an understanding of how cross-scalar dynamics drive processes of land-use change. This study examines the environmental impacts of a Mexican rural support program, referred to by its Spanish acronym, PROCAMPO, which was introduced in 1994 as part of a comprehensive agenda to liberalize the agricultural sector. Using both descriptive analyses of the study region’s political ecology and econometric modeling, we draw on a panel of farm-household data spanning 1986–1997 to assess the impact of PROCAMPO on land-use change in southeastern Mexico. The results indicate that the program has had the unintended effect of fostering deforestation and has led to an only modest increase in market production. These findings suggest that alternative mechanisms may be needed to achieve the market integration and agricultural modernization sought by neoliberal policies and that such policies may have to be restructured to avoid unintended environmental impacts. By connecting macro-level economic phenomena with regional and local environmental impacts, this study addresses the linkages of cross-scale human-environment interaction.

Integrated land history and global change science: The example of the Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region project

Abstract Land histories originate in multiple disciplines. The corpus of this research, however, does not link well to the science of global environmental change, despite explicit recognition by that science to incorporate land history. History and global change science would both benefit by such linkages, which necessitates the development of “integrated land history.” This interdisciplinary research subject is identified here, illustrated through the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region project. This project addresses tropical deforestation and agricultural change in a frontier “hot spot” of biotic diversity. It seeks to inform environmental and global change science, including its human and modeling dimensions. Emphasis is placed on the mutual benefits for both land history and global change studies created by the integration in question.

Stewardship among lifestyle oriented rural landowners.

Changes in landownership associated with amenity migration are affecting the demographic, cadastral and ecological conditions of rural landscapes. These changes and concerns about their impacts on natural resource management, including ecological conservation, relate to both the structural consequences of landownership change, land subdivision and to the motivations, management ability and attitudes of lifestyle oriented rural landowners. Based on an Australian case study near Sydney, NSW, this paper examines the motivations and practices of such landowners, assesses potential consequences for vegetation and characterises the landowners according to three stewardship types.

Deforestation, Forest Transitions, and Institutions for Sustainability in Southeastern Mexico, 1900-2000

Research on tropical forest cover change processes identifies myriad driving forces and demonstrates how change dynamics are non-linear and complex. Despite appreciation in the academic literature for the historical patterns and processes of deforestation, however, a simplistic, linear ʻdeforestation narrativeʼ persists in the popular imagination. Concern arises when this narrative influences environmental policy and effective response to the tropical deforesta tion problem. Our main goals here are twofold: (1) to contribute to a nuanced history of forest change in southeastern Mexico; and (2) to explore the role of institutional development in reducing deforestation rates. Drawing on forest transition theory, we analyse the twentieth century forest histories of the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, the southern Yucatan Peninsula, and the Lacandon Rainforest. A deforestation narrative rightly dominates characterisations of the 1960–85 period in southeastern Mexico, but it falls short of accurately representing the complex processes of deforestation, forest recovery, and the development of sustainability-oriented grassroots institutions in the 1985–2003 period.

Same but different: sources of natural resource management advice for lifestyle oriented rural landholders

Amenity migration to attractive and accessible non-metropolitan areas changes social and environmental relations with consequences for natural resource management and landscape composition and trajectories. Lifestyler oriented rural landholders are often cast as a problem for land management and extension. Managers and some researchers see them as a cause of landscape and social fragmentation and report difficulties in engaging such landowners on natural resource management issues and responsibilities. In contrast, limited existing research indicates that lifestylers do join and form networks of personal and other contacts for advice and support in land management. We contribute to this research with a survey of rural landholders in southeastern New South Wales (NSW). We explicitly compare the sources of advice for land management for lifestylers with those of farmers. We focus on the types of sources available to rural landholders in Australian regions and their relative importance to these two landholder groups. We find that lifestylers and farmers are different in their sources of advice but that both prefer personal sources rather than sources such as agencies. We reflect on the significance of the differences for engagement with lifestyle oriented rural landowners and for understanding landscape change.

A method to dynamically subdivide parcels in land use change models

Spatial simulation models have become a popular tool in studying land use/land cover (LULC) change. An important, yet largely overlooked process in such models is the land subdivision, which is known to govern LULC change and landscape restructuring to a large extent. To fill this gap, we propose an efficient and straightforward method to simulate dynamic land subdivision in LULC change models. Key features in the proposed method are implementing a hierarchical landscape where adjacent cells of the same LULC type form patches, patches form properties, and properties form the landscape and incorporating real subdivision layouts. Furthermore, we use a queue-based modified flood-fill algorithm to dynamically reset LULC patches following a subdivision. The proposed subdivision method is demonstrated in action using a prototype agent-based LULC model developed for an amenity landscape in Australia. Results show that it is computationally feasible to run the subdivision method even as spatial resolution is increased, thus providing a proven means for spatial simulation models to dynamically split parcel land.

Ethiopian church forests: a socio-religious conservation model under change

ABSTRACT For centuries, the core religious values of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church communities have ensured the protection of church forests. Despite this strong and longstanding tradition, however, communities are now facing a host of new challenges and opportunities. Our interdisciplinary research highlights ways in which the ecological status of church forests may be threatened due to new practices as well as the changing economic status of church forest communities. We find that the adaptability of these communities to changes associated with modernity might, inadvertently, be a key factor in ecological degradation. But their adaptability might also offer a window of opportunity for agents of forest conservation. Based primarily on ethnography, this article presents Ethiopian church forests as dynamic socio-religious spaces, explores the types of changes affecting the communities and their forests, and considers ways in which the church forest conservation model is evolving.

The Paradox of Engagement: Land Stewardship and Invasive Weeds in Amenity Landscapes

In New South Wales, Australia, rural landscapes are undergoing profound change as a result of exurbanization. Newcomers—amenity migrants—are drawn to the scenic beaches, forests, and open landscape character of this part of Australia near Sydney and they join existing communities of long-term residents, notably ranchers involved in dairy, beef, and other types of primary agricultural production. The rural to exurban transition is stimulating both intended and unintended socio-ecological changes, especially the proliferation of invasive weeds, which are considered to be a top national priority as they threaten Australia’s agricultural economy. Drawing on interview and survey research from three case studies in New South Wales, locations where an influx of exurbanites has led to mixed landscapes of production and consumption, we explore landowners’ diverse environmental ideologies, the degree to which they collaborate with one another, and their specific land-use practices. Results show that an overwhelming majority of both exurbanites and ranchers express concerns about weeds, but there is a marked lack of coordinated engagement on invasive species between the two types of groups. This chapter is an example of social disengagement over land-use and land-cover change, rather than competition or cooperation, and contributes to a political ecological understanding of the co-construction of social relations and land management regimes.