2021/10/12 by Benno Pokorny, Pablo Pacheco, Wil de Jong +2 · 18 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Amazon rainforest #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Development economics #Ecology #Economic growth #Economics #Geography #Indigenous #Land Use and Ecosystem Services #Mindset #Political science
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s13280-021-01637-4
published in AMBIO 50(12), 2199-2223 (Springer Science+Business Media)
openalex publication_date 2021/10/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
With the Brazilian military governments of the 1960s, systematic economic development of the Amazon began. Social and environmental concerns have entered Amazonian discourses and policies only since the 1990s. Since then, reports of threats to forests and indigenous people have alternated with reports of socio-economic progress and environmental achievements. These contradictions often arise from limited thematic, sectoral, temporal, or spatial perspectives, and lead to misinterpretation. Our paper offers a comprehensive picture of discourses, policies, and socio-environmental dynamics for the entire region over the last five decades. We distinguish eight historical policy phases, each of which had little effect on near-linear dynamics of demographic growth and land-use expansion, although some policies showed the potential to change the course of development. To prevent local, national, and international actors from continuing to assert harmful interests in the region, a coherent long-term commitment and change in the collective mindset are needed.