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Land Use Change in Brazil: A macro-regional perspective

Land Use Change in Brazil: A macro-regional perspective. Andrea Cattaneo Seminar presented at: Center for International Development January 30, 2003. Overview. Briefly discuss the issue of scale Potential issues/drivers linked to land use change in Brazil

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Land Use Change in Brazil: A macro-regional perspective

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  1. Land Use Change in Brazil: A macro-regional perspective Andrea Cattaneo Seminar presented at: Center for International Development January 30, 2003

  2. Overview • Briefly discuss the issue of scale • Potential issues/drivers linked to land use change in Brazil • Entry points to discuss economy-environment links • Compare the order of magnitude of impact on deforestation of a subset of “drivers” of land use change

  3. Choosing the Appropriate Scale • Key theme to modeling across scale: • The relationship between what we see and the scale at which we measure it. • Leaf Branch Tree Forest • New properties emerge when data are aggregated: Operational scale - the scale at which a process operates • different research questions require different scales of measurement • In fact, many models are scale dependent

  4. Brazil: A Multi-Regional Approach • Issues • Crisis of Brazilian Currency • Subsidies & Taxes • Reduction in Amazon transportation costs • Tenure Regimes • Technological Innovation • Method • Regional CGE model for Brazil

  5. Economy-Environment Links Factor Markets Land/Water Wages & Rents Factor Costs Demand for Intermediate Inputs Producers Institutions Product Markets Energy + Materials Amenities Sales Revenues Final Demand ? Waste Sink ?

  6. Regional Disaggregation of Model

  7. Structural Model Characteristics • Detailed representation of regional agricultural technologies: small and large farms • Segmented capital markets • Model allows for excess supply in factor markets • Econometrically estimated migration functions

  8. Structural Model… (continued) • Regional trade and transportation margins • Deforestation Sector: produces arable land • Biophysical processes affect land use

  9. Scale Amazon Inter-regional National International

  10. Productivity Improvements in Brazilian Agriculture (1985-1995) Legal Amazon 30% Northeast 24% Center-West 54% South/SE 22%

  11. Scale Amazon Inter-regional National International

  12. Innovation and Agronomic Sustainability in the Amazon: stock effects vs. expectation effects Increasing sustainability Increasing sustainability • Sustainability improvements: annuals or livestock? • annuals decrease deforestation, livestock increases deforestation • Productivity improvements increase deforestation

  13. Strengths of the “macro” approach… • The structure of the model allows for multiple land use change mechanisms • A lot of structural information is readily available: • economic accounting constraints • factor intensities • Survey data: ag census, production, household, labor statistics • The economic structure can be linked to environmental processes

  14. … and the inevitable weaknesses • Uncertainty about parameters: rarely estimated econometrically • Lack of spatial detail is a drawback if environmental variables are heterogeneous over space • Requires a lot of effort to build a good model: no easy off-the-shelf answers to difficult questions.

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