Migration Policies and Colonization Projects

Deforestation in the humid tropics of Latin America has often been the result of policies or specific programmes that have encouraged the migration of the rural poor (besides other categories, such as ex-combatants) from densely populated regions to forest frontiers within the same countries. Such policies and programmes have been considered easier and more attractive than reform of land tenure within established agricultural zones (most Latin American countries have highly inequitable land tenure), or other policies to reduce rural poverty. Migration into forests can bring about the direct conversion of forests to pasture. Alternatively, forests can be cleared as cultivable land, which under humid tropical conditions quickly becomes exhausted, and is often replaced by poor-quality pasture.

Migration can be encouraged by:

- General policies such as;

- Subsidies
- Road building
- Land titling issues

or

- Colonization projects offering integrated packages of support to settlers.

Important socio-political forces drive internal migration and colonization, but it is important to governments:

- to assess the true costs, including environmental costs, of deforestation,
- to seek other solutions to rural poverty in established agricultural areas, and specifically to adopt policies of:
- land tenure reform on forest frontiers
- critical appraisal of road building
- social policies behind the frontier

Key references

Hecht, S.B. 1992. Logics of Livestock and Deforestation: the Case Of Amazonia. In Downing, T.E., Hecht, S.B., Pearson, H.A. and Garcia-Downing, C. (eds) Development or Destruction: The Conversion of Tropical Forest To Pasture in Latin America Westview, Boulder

Jones, J.R. 1990. Colonization and Environment: Land Settlement Projects in Central America. United Nations University Press, Tokyo.

Kaimowitz, D. 1995. Livestock and Deforestation in Central America in the 1980s and 1990s: A Policy Perspective. EPTD Discussion Paper, IFPRI, Washington DC, 1995. Click to view as Word document . (further information including copies of the report can be obtained from IFPRI at http://www.iimi.org/ifpri)

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