Mapping and spatial analysis of the soybean agricultural frontier in Mato Grosso, Brazil, using remote sensing data

The main pioneer frontier considered by geographers is the Amazonian pioneer frontier. The occupation of the Brazilian territory has been carried out through successive economic cycles. Currently, the expansion of soybean crops in Amazonia is considered as the last economic cycle involving new migrations to still unexplored areas. Mapping this frontier is necessary in order to better understand its drivers and think about efficient land use policies to struggle its progress. In this paper, we propose an innovative methodology for mapping the agricultural frontier in the Amazonian state of Mato Grosso (Brazil) using satellite data acquired during the 2000–2006 period. We assume that the frontier evolves through successive land-use stages such as wildlands, non-croplands, extensive croplands and intensive croplands areas. The transitions between two stages can then be monitored through land-use change analysis. A particular emphasis is given on three land-use transitions named “deforestation”, “economic” and “intensification sub-frontiers”. In order to adapt this model for the use of remote sensing data, we defined (1) a relevant spatial scale corresponding to an agrarian locality, (2) relevant indices to qualify the land-use types and (3) rules applied on land-use types to define the frontier’s location. Our results highlight the dynamic of the agricultural frontier towards northern areas. We identified four main agricultural regions with different levels of agricultural intensification. We finally discuss these results with respect to governmental policies and economics for a better understanding of the frontier’s dynamic.     

Territorializing land conflict: Space,place, and contentious politics in the Brazilian Amazon

Brazil possesses a long history of violent struggle for land, and its most recent phase is occurring predominantly in the Amazon Basin. Consequently, this paper attempts to territorialize land conflict in the Brazilian Amazon, and in so doing, to illuminate the place-specific intersection of historic social, political, and economic circumstance that created a violent landscape in the so-called “South of Pará.” The paper’s premise is that such conflict can be best viewed as resulting from a dialectic between general social processes operating across spatial scales, which create necessary conditions for conflict, and place-specific historical circumstances that transform necessary into sufficient conditions. The paper presents a framework integrating the theory of contentious politics and literatures addressing violence associated with the Amazonian frontier and with resource scarcity (and abundance). The discussion and theoretical application deconstruct the environmental, cognitive, and relational mechanisms that created violence in the South of Pará, and set the stage for the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre in April of 1996.     

运用差分GPS动态获取高精度土地资源变化数据的新技术

由于经济的飞速发展,许多耕地被占用变为非农业用地。土地管理部门需要及时准确地掌握城镇和农村用地的变化格局,为耕地保护政策的制定提供依据。但传统的土地变更测量方法存在难于准确获取变化边界坐标,成图困难且周期长、人为操作随意性大等不足。在分析各种GPS差分技术的基础上提出了运用移动差分GPS技术获取土地利用变化信息的新方法。作为国家“九·五”攻关项目的研究内容,该方法在包头市郊区县进行了实验,结果证明与传统测量方法相比,具有快速、准确,操作简便,GPS数据输入GIS,可以快速成图等优点。     

The spatial context of manpower policy: Implications of current Canadian policy on regional development and planning

Macro government policies are often considered outside the context of their spatial impact. Following recent discussions of the problem, this paper is concerned with a critical review of Canadian Manpower policy in the context of national efficiency, regional equity and their interaction. Thus Manpower policy is analysed with respect to its implications concerning regional development as well as implicit regional policy. It is contended that many of the problems of Manpower policy in the spatial context can be traced back to the implicit theoretical background of Manpower policy; Human Capital theory. A radical critique of Human Capital theory is presented and a brief discussion of the ‘functional’ relationship between regional inequality and national macro-planning is also noted. In general the paper concludes that Manpower and regional policies in Canada tend to be contradictory although more research is needed to analyse the spatial impact of macro-policy which may overwhelm spatial policy and significantly influence the future of the spatial economy.     

Women/chickens vs. men/cattle: Insights on gender–species intersectionality

This paper is conceptually grounded in feminist–posthumanist intersectionality, offering an empirical case study that is geographic in scope, balances discursive and material elements, focuses on gender–species relations, and details dynamics of othering and privileging. It is empirically situated in a case study featuring women and chickens, men and cattle in the southern African nation of Botswana. It considers their symbolic associations with certain social realms, their spatial placements into and within particular locales, and the resulting context-specific dynamics that occur and shape their daily lives and interrelations with one another. Such socio-spatial practices are the means through which men, women, chickens and cattle become privileged and/or othered within dominant gender–species hierarchical arrangements. The paper also explores emerging urban and commercial agriculture spaces in contemporary Botswana, which empower women and chickens through increased access to land and productive activities, and increased visibility, status and value. Such empowerment remains bounded, however, given significant material, discursive and ethical implications of re-positioning within dominant structures.     

Spatial form of urbanization,sustainability and fragmented landownership: the example of Ilan in Taiwan’s urbanization

As a part of the inevitable process of industrialization, urbanization and its associated spatial forms generally have a substantial effect on sustainability. This paper considers the spatial form and sustainability of urbanization by evaluating the interaction between land-use planning, urban regimes and the fragmented structure of land ownership. This paper conceptualizes the structure of landownership as an institution that affects the form of spatial development and thereby determines the spatial implications of urban sprawl on sustainability. With reference to the Ilan experience of urbanizing Taiwan, it shows that the development of spatial form and sustainability is the product of planning institution and urban regime mobilization, and it reflects the institutional impact of a fragmented landownership structure. The conclusion also discusses policy implications.     

Actor and frontier types in the Brazilian Amazon: Assessing interactions and outcomes associated with frontier expansion

This paper analyzes frontier expansion in the Brazilian Amazon as a process that depends on multiple exogenous and endogenous factors operating at diverse scales, but whose trajectory depends on the dominant actor type (smallholders or medium- or large-scale landholders) occupying the frontier landscape. Despite the broad growing trend of pasture expansion for adoption of cattle ranching as the main land use associated with frontier expansion, some differences persist across actor types. In relative terms, medium- and large-scale landholders place most of their cleared forestland under pasture, and in absolute terms, largeholders have deforested more than smallholders because they hold larger tracts of land. Recently, however, deforestation activity has been increasing in frontiers occupied by smallholders who tend to convert a greater proportion of the forestland in their landholdings to agricultural land uses than larger-scale landholders, mainly to expand cattle ranching operations. Furthermore, smallholders tend to maintain higher cattle stocking rates than medium- and large-scale landholders, which tend to adopt extensive systems of cattle production. Both economic and human development indices in each frontier type vary according to actor type. While in absolute terms, higher per capita agricultural income levels are found in frontiers where largeholders predominate, the corresponding incomes are higher in smallholder frontiers when prorated by unit of land under crops and pasture. In addition, the Human Development Index is higher in frontiers with greater presence of large-scale landholdings.     

The political economy of informal settlements in post-socialist China: The case of chengzhongcun(s)

Informal settlements become an intriguing spatial dimension of urbanization in those countries which experience the systemic shift from socialism to neoliberal regimes. This paper takes chengzhongcun(s) (literally meaning ‘villages encircled by the city’ boundaries) as a case to explore the dynamics of informal settlements in post-socialist China that has certain distinctive features related to the legacy of socialist institutions and restructuring of urban space by various forces. The paper details the political and economic contexts, as well as the ways in which chengzhongcun(s) are transformed into functional but unregulated urban space. It also elucidates the policy approach towards formalizing chengzhongcun(s) and confrontation involving in government-led redevelopment. The analysis illustrates how spatial informality is shaped by the interaction of economic interests and political considerations in a post-socialist economy with retaining the rural-urban dualism of land ownership and the control of urban citizenship.     

River basin approach and integrated water management: Governance pitfalls for the Dutch Space-Water-Adjustment Management Principle

This article describes the turn to new integrative water management strategies in the Netherlands. It illustrates that some of the new and the general objectives and principles are not easily applied in practice. First, the article focuses on the development of integrative management of water and spatial development. A main policy line, the ‘Room for the River’ directive, was originally an ad hoc reaction to unexpected floods, but accompanied by other policy reforms it grew into an application of the river basin approach with an emphasis on its spatial consequences. The resulting Space-Water-Adjustment Management Principle (SWAMP) emphasizes the mutual adjustments in policy that must be made in both water policy and spatial development. Officially, water is proclaimed as an ordering element, yet actual spatial developments still follow lines of economic and social priorities as executed by institutional powers. Three case studies are presented to illustrate the emergence of new principles and governance issues linked to these management approaches. In practice, the paper concludes, spatial planning and land use decisions show a centralization tendency that is not in line with the proclaimed prevalence of local identity, resilience and open decentralized and deliberative governance in the SWAMP-based integrated river basin management.     

Coca and conservation: cultivation, eradication, and trafficking in the Amazon borderlands

The cultivation and traffic of coca, Erythrolxylum coca, and coca derivatives remain understudied threats to the conservation of the Amazon rainforest. Currently the crop is transforming land use and livelihoods in the ecologically and culturally rich borderlands of Amazonian Peru. The isolated nature of this region characterized by indigenous populations (both settled and uncontacted), conservation units, resource concessions, and a lack of state presence provides fertile ground for the boom and bust cycle of coca production and facilitates the international transport of the product to neighboring Brazil. This paper explores the social and environmental impacts of coca production, eradication, and transport through an analysis of both spatial and ethnographic data on land use and livelihood strategies along the Ucayali and Purús Rivers. Results map out the regional distribution and recent history of commercial coca fields and transboundary transportation routes and identify threats to the conservation of indigenous landscapes and borderland forests.     

日本的泡沫经济与土地利用变化

自1981年起日本经历了长达10年的泡沫经济时期,经济过热的现象于1991年12月突然终止。这一时期对日本的土地和经济造成了许多长远的影响,这是一个无论从经济学视角还是土地利用视角都非常严肃却在学术上又非常有趣的现象。来自地方的土地利用变化趋势调查报告（1980—2005）揭示了政府政策以及地方权力机构的意图是如何影响土地利用的,不同类型的土地利用是如何响应泡沫经济的,而泡沫经济又对土地产生了怎样影响。本研究揭示了在泡沫经济下人类活动影响土地的一些明显的规律。这些规律非常值得其他国家、特别是亚洲的发展中国家借鉴,以减轻或回避经济过热对土地和环境带来的灾难性后果。     

梁山县保增长保红线的几点做法

为落实最严格的耕地保护制度和节约用地制度,梁山县国土资源局从2009年3月开始开展了保增长保红线行动,通过积极主动服务,拓展建设用地空间,严格执法监管,全面推进国土资源工作的有序开展,保障了全县经济社会的科学发展跨越发展。     

Sociospatial aspects of Australian aboriginal underdevelopment. Empirical evidence from the East kimberley

Prior to the penetration of the European capitalist economy into central and northern Australia, the Aboriginal mode of production was one of hunting and gathering. Spiritual, economic and social relationships betwen people and land produced a spatial distribution of small bands of people living on their traditional lands. To the incoming white settlers the low population density and type of land use appeared uneconomic. This observation was used as ideological justification for the expropriation and development of the land for commercial pastoralism. This paper discusses the articulation of the Aboriginal and European modes of production in the East Kimberley region of northwest Australia. It argues that the introduced capitalist economy virtually destroyed the Aboriginal means of subsistence, incorporating Aborigines into the new mode of production within various subordinate roles. The exploitation of Aborigines, formerly as labour and now predominantely as consumers, is fundamental to the maintenance of the capitalist mode of production in pastoral areas. The spatial effects of the dominant mode of production have been to centralise Aborigines in locations suited to the various phases of development of the European economy, undermining the traditional Aboriginal social-spatial structure. The centralisation of the Aboriginal population also enhances the opportunities for the further development of the mining industry, which is in direct competition with Aboriginal interests in land. Aboriginal resistance to these spatial tendencies is intense in many quarters, but efforts to return to living on traditional lands and to develop alternative ways of living are hampered by the dominant mode of production.     

Using economic geography to reinvigorate land-change science

In this paper we review the implications of neoclassical economic framings within the interdisciplinary field of land-change science. We argue that current pressing global environmental problems, such as land grabs, loss of critical carbon sinks and the increasing importance of corporate actors in land-use decision-making, necessitate a reconsideration of neoclassical conceptualizations of what the economy is, who economic actors are and how they make decisions, and how environment–economy linkages operate in a globalized world. We argue that concepts from economic geography can help land change science move beyond neoclassical framings. The first concept is that the economic (including markets, commodities, and rational decision-makers) is neither separate nor universal, but is historical and socially embedded. The second is to use these notions to understand the spatial organization of economic activity. The framework of global production networks, in particular, will help land change scientists conceptualize and represent teleconnections. Using economic geography to move beyond neoclassical economic framings will bring a fresh approach to economic change that holds much promise for invigorating land change science.     

从土地财政与土地金融分析中国土地制度走向

土地财政与土地金融折射土地制度与土地政策。现行征地制度是从计划经济演化而来,政府经营土地制度则是城市土地使用制度改革的结果。这两个制度的结合,形成土地财政和土地金融。现行土地制度导致的土地利用粗放、土地资源浪费严重、透支未来收益、社会分配不公等弊端日益显露。土地制度的未来走向,应适应社会主义市场经济的要求,赋予农民完全的土地财产权;政府最终必须退出土地直接经营活动。彻底改革现行征地制度和政府经营土地制度,必须进一步解放思想。     

Cows versus rubber: Changing livelihoods among Amazonian extractivists

The livelihood strategies of former rubber tappers in the Amazon region are rapidly shifting from extraction of non-timber forest products to mixed systems based on agriculture and small scale cattle ranching. Using a combination of participatory methods and Geographical Information Systems, a case study in western Acre, Brazil explores how rubber tapper livelihood strategies may be changing, and the implications of these changes for land use and forest cover. Field (cattle pasture and agriculture) expansion and the decline of forest extractivism present challenges to many regional conservation and development projects such as sustainable settlement projects and extractive reserves seeking to develop forest-based livelihood alternatives to limit deforestation. Sustainability goals require researchers and policy makers to address the still experimental status of these forest-based organizational units, the heterogeneity and dynamism of extractivist livelihoods, and the necessary importance of small-scale cattle ranching for insurance and income generation among many former and current extractivists.     

Morphostructural provinces and neotectonics in the Amazonian lowlands of Peru

The Amazonian lowlands of Peru are composed of the Subandean Zone (foreland), the Marañón Basin (foredeep) and the Iquitos Geanticline (Brazilian Craton). The Subandean Zone includes the Subandean Thrust and Fold Belt (STFB) to the west, which crops out mostly in the foothills, and the Subandean Tilted Block Zone (STBZ) to the east, which is principally exposed in the Amazonian lowlands of central Peru. The main trends of river belts are related to structural style. Main rivers in the STFB are antecedent, and secondary drainage is subsequent. In the STBZ, river basins are channelized, parallel to structural grain. The special asymmetric pattern of the Subandean drainage network depends on these two juxtaposed structural regions. As a result, fluvial migration in Peruvian lowlands is more controlled and limited by neotectonics than previously supposed.     

Mobile pastoralism on the brink of land privatization in Northern Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire’s adoption of land privatization policies promoted by the World Bank and European Union is producing new land use patterns in the countryside. A centerpiece of these policies is the 1998 Rural Land Law that aims to restructure rural economic life along agrarian capitalist lines. The purported “development” objective of land privatization is to stimulate agricultural productivity based on the assumption that land titling will lead farmers and herders to make greater investments in their production systems. This paper argues that the mobile livestock raising system of immigrant FulBe pastoralists in Côte d’Ivoire is threatened by the new land law. Since mobility is crucial to animal health and fertility rates, I argue that reduced mobility will lead to lower livestock productivity. Although the land law has yet to be implemented, its very existence is leading prospective claimants to test their land rights by planting orchards and lending land to immigrant farmers. The monetization of land lending and grazing rights is increasingly common. Land disputes over who has the power to allocate land are also on the rise. I argue that this heightened interest in “tenure building” is constraining herd mobility, especially for herders with limited resources to negotiate access to rangelands. On the other hand, land privatization is strengthening the hand of local cattle-owning farmers who increasingly practice mobile livestock raising and compete with FulBe herders for grazing lands. Under these new conditions of land access, control, and competition, FulBe herd mobility and productivity are at risk of declining.     

土地储备的发展 实践以及新时代背景下的思考

土地储备制度起源于欧洲,发展于欧美地区。我国自20世纪90年代末,在借鉴国外发展经验的基础上,相继成立了土地储备机构,建立了土地储备制度。经过二十多年的发展,土地储备有效解决了土地无偿使用制度下产生的诸多历史遗留问题,为培育和规范土地市场、有效配置土地资源、优化城市空间布局、促进城市经济以及社会发展发挥了重要作用。十九大后,中国特色社会主义步入新时代。土地储备工作要深入贯彻新发展理念,积极应对新情况新问题新挑战,强化政府主导和公益性定位,适应土地市场发展改革需求,寻找新的转型发展之路。     

A growth agenda without growth: English spatial policy,sustainable communities,and the death of the neo-liberal project?

The rapid onset of the recession in the UK in 2009 is likely to have profound implications for English spatial policy. The neo-liberal emphasis on supporting, and catering for, the expansion of the globally competitive London and the South East region is coming under strain as growth falters. The future of spatial policy seems uncertain as does the emphasis on what has been termed sustainable community-building. This paper explores and assesses the politics of assumption-building that have underpinned spatial policy practices and thinking in England under the Labour government. It examines and highlights some of the key challenges and difficulties that now face policy-makers and explores the possibility that we are witnessing the emergence of new forms of neo-Keynesianism. It shows that as the core assumptions of the 1990s and 2000s break down, so new opportunities are opened up for alternative, less growth-oriented agendas. The paper concludes by highlighting areas for further research and sketching out possible futures for the sustainable communities agenda.