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Cited by 118Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource ManagementSocial Sciences and HumanitiesAgriculture, Land Use, Rural Development

From eco-catastrophe to zero deforestation? Interdisciplinarities, politics, environmentalisms and reduced clearing in Amazonia

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HECHT, SUSANNA B.·2012·Environmental Conservation
DOI 10.1017/s0376892911000452
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Abstract

SUMMARY: Brazil's rate of deforestation has declined by more than 70% since 2004, a dynamic unimaginable even a decade ago. Even the worst drought in more than 100 years (2010) produced a flat clearing profile from 2009–2010, an unexpected result, since dry periods usually have clearing spikes. While deforestation continues throughout the tropics (and Amazonia), and the recent change in Brazil's Forest Code has produced a modest increase in deforestation, there are significant processes that are slowing clearing and fostering woodland recovery. This paper outlines the multiplicities and interdisciplinarities of political ecologies, policies, politics scientific approaches and technologies that have moderated forest conversion and shaped Amazonia's unusual, and unusually effective development and conservation conjunctures in Brazil's post-authoritarian period. New institutional framings, ideologies, political decentralization, globalizations and an expanded arena for new social movements and civil society provided the context for this transformation. Changing environmental institutions, discourses and the relatively redistributive social pact that underpinned President Ignacio (Lula) da Silva's administration had a significant role in promoting more resilient land uses, monitoring, compliance and new markets, while regional social movements and national and international commodity boycotts affected more damaging ones. Finally, other forms of payment for environmental services, such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) and REDD+ are changing the value of standing forests. This paper describes how complex interdisciplinarities shaped the politics, policies and practices that slowed forest clearing. However, Amazonia's politics are extremely dynamic: destabilizing processes, violence and indifferent national leadership could still reverse this remarkable turnaround.

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  • In 2012, Davidson et al. demonstrated how the Amazon basin was experiencing a transition to a 'disturbance-dominated regime' related to climatic and land use changes, even though at the time, annual deforestation rates were declining owing to new forms of governance.

    “In 2012, Davidson et al.102 demonstrated how the Amazon basin was experiencing a transition to a ‘disturbance-dominated regime’ related to climatic and land use changes, even though at the time, annual deforestation rates were declining owing to new forms of governance103.”

    From Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system (2024) · cites this paper as [103]

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Authors
HECHT, S. B.
Affiliations
University of California, Los Angeles (US)
Corresponding author
HECHT, SUSANNA B.
ORCID
HECHT, SUSANNA B.
Venue
Environmental Conservation
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2011-09-19
Volume
39
Issue
1
Pages
4-19
ISSN
  • 0376-8929 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-4387
DOI
10.1017/s0376892911000452
OpenAlex
W2060397574
Cited by
118
References
0
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 4
FWCI
4.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified)
Locations
  • Environmental Conservation (publishedVersion)
  • Graduate Institute Geneva Institutional Repository (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
Keywords
Amazon deforestation, deforestation decline, political ecology, environmental policy, Forest Code, social movements, payment for environmental services, REDD+, Lula government, social pact, environmental institutions, political decentralization, forest recovery

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