2009/11/24 by Thomas K. Rudel, Ruth DeFries, Gregory P. Asner +1 · 3 citations
Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Global trade, sustainability, and social impact
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01332.x
openalex publication_date 2009/11/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Over the past 50 years, human agents of deforestation have changed in ways that have potentially important implications for conservation efforts. We characterized these changes through a meta-analysis of case studies of land-cover change in the tropics. From the 1960s to the 1980s, small-scale farmers, with state assistance, deforested large areas of tropical forest in Southeast Asia and Latin America. As globalization and urbanization increased during the 1980s, the agents of deforestation changed in two important parts of the tropical biome, the lowland rainforests in Brazil and Indonesia. Well-capitalized ranchers, farmers, and loggers producing for consumers in distant markets became more prominent in these places and this globalization weakened the historically strong relationship between local population growth and forest cover. At the same time, forests have begun to regrow in some tropical uplands. These changing circumstances, we believe, suggest two new and differing strategies for biodiversity conservation in the tropics, one focused on conserving uplands and the other on promoting environmental stewardship in lowlands and other areas conducive to industrial agriculture.