文章基本信息

标题：Globalization and Land-Use Transitions in Latin America
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作者：H. Ricardo Grau ; Mitchell Aide
期刊名称：Ecology and Society
印刷版ISSN：1708-3087
电子版ISSN：1708-3087
出版年度：2008
卷号：13
期号：2
出版社：The Resilience Alliance
摘要：Current socioeconomic drivers of land-use change associated with globalization are producing two contrasting land-use trends in Latin America. Increasing global food demand (particularly in Southeast Asia) accelerates deforestation in areas suitable for modern agriculture (e.g., soybean), severely threatening ecosystems, such as Amazonian rain forests, dry forests, and subtropical grasslands. Additionally, in the coming decades, demand for biofuels may become an emerging threat. In contrast, high yields in modern agricultural systems and rural–urban migration coupled with remittances promote the abandonment of marginal agricultural lands, thus favoring ecosystem recovery on mountains, deserts, and areas of poor soils, while improving human well-being. The potential switch from production in traditional extensive grazing areas to intensive modern agriculture provides opportunities to significantly increase food production while sparing land for nature conservation. This combination of emerging threats and opportunities requires changes in the way the conservation of Latin American ecosystems is approached. Land-use efficiency should be analyzed beyond the local-based paradigm that drives most conservation programs, and focus on large geographic scales involving long-distance fluxes of products, information, and people in order to maximize both agricultural production and the conservation of environmental services.
关键词：agriculture; deforestation; ecological transition; forest transition; globalization; land-use change; Latin America