Which actor holds the right to the land is going to determine how the resources will be used, so it follows that changes in tenure will have an influence on the landscape. This presentation uses various methods to look at the dynamic between land tenure and land use change in the Brazilian Amazon. This presentation was given during CIFOR’s Annual Meeting 2012, which was held on 1–5 October at the headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia.

1. Land tenure and land use change
Pablo Pacheco
CIFOR, Annual Meeting 2012
October – Bogor, Indonesia
THINKING beyond the canopy

2. Main issues on debate
 Which actor holds the right to the land is going
to determine how the resources will be used
 Changes in tenure structures (or regimes) tend
to influence on landscape change as result of
land-use associated economic processes
 For effective policy responses is important not
only to know more in-depth how tenure change
takes place but also where that change occurs
THINKING beyond the canopy

3. Tenure change and deforestation:
Reconstructing land tenure change over time
Redenção area: Land tenure change
Mosaic for land allocation
and SUDAM projects
How previous decisions on land
distribution affect contemporary land
100% 12%
80%
9%
tenure configurations? what are their
60%
6%
40%
3%
main land-use impacts?
20%
0%
0%
1986 1992 1996 2000 2002 1986-92 1992-96 1996-00 2000-02
Smallholders Medium and large ranchers No identified Smallholders Medium and large ranchers No identified
Contribution of agents by Annual rates of deforestation
Pacheco (2009) Environment and History 15(4):493-520 period in % by agent in %
THINKING beyond the canopy

4. Land distribution and deforestation:
Linking agricultural census and remote sensing data
What are the interactions between state-
led land reform and land-use change
taking place in the Brazilian Amazon?
The implications are heterogeneous since are related
to the pre-existing social and economic configuration
of the frontiers where land distribution takes place.
Actor type derived from IBGE Agricultural
Census 1995/96. It shows the dominance of
either smallholders (< 100 ha), medium-scale
landholders (100 to 1,000 ha), or largeholders
(> 1,000 ha). That information was overlaid
with INPE deforestation data by 2003.
Pacheco (2009) World Development 37(8):1337-1347
Deforestation data obtained from INPE by 2003
THINKING beyond the canopy

5. Tenure and economic change:
Looking at two points of time based on census data
What are the main tenure change dynamics
taking place—at a regional scale –and how are
they related to land-use decision making?
Two simultaneous processes of extensification and
intensification. These trends of change are associated to
concentration and fragmentation of landholdings
Pacheco and Poccard-Chapuis (2012). Annals of the AAG 102(6)
THINKING beyond the canopy

6. Actor and frontier types:
Implications from differential interactions
Land use in the BLA (2006)
What are the land use dynamics related to
different actor and frontier types in the
agricultural frontiers in Brazilian Amazon?
There is a greater accumulated deforestation in
landscapes that are dominated by large-scale
landholders but deforestation intensity is growing in
those where smallholders are the predominant actor.
ACTOR TYPE
HDI in 2000 by frontier type Agricultural GDP per unit of
land by frontier type
FRONTIER TYPE THINKING GeoForum.43(4): 864–874,
Pacheco (2012).beyond the canopy

7. Land distribution at national level:
Looking at tenure at the property / territorial unit level
What is the emerging tenure structure from
Land distribution in Para and lowland Bolivia
land regularization in a context of competing
Thousand hectares In percents
rights claims among diverse social actors? Tenure type Para Lowland Para Lowland
Bolivia Bolivia
Smallholders 27,329 6,479 22.4 7.8
Medium- and large-scale
landholders 34,023 22,998 27.9 27.7
Community lands 8,091 5,973 6.6 7.2
Indigenous territories 27,368 13,424 22.5 16.2
Public land identified 24,954 15,534 20.5 18.7
Forest concessions 4,409 - 5.3
Protected areas 14,096 - 17.0
TOTAL 121,764 82,912 100.0 100.0
Lowland Bolivia
Temporal variation in land-cover change by
actor type in lowland Bolivia
State of Para, Brazil
Pacheco and Benatti (in preparation)
THINKING beyond the canopy

8. Potential and limitations
 Outcomes depend on spatial and temporal resolution
of socio-economic and remote sensing data
 Increasing availability of more disaggregated data
over time makes able to produce more accurate
assessment of tenure configurations and LUC
 Census data provides a good understanding of land
tenure configurations, and associated processes
related to land privatization and commoditization
 Census or remote sensing data requires to be
complemented with analysis of social arrangements
and bundles of rights associated to land tenure
THINKING beyond the canopy