Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Rudel and Roper (1997) recast these two
major explanations for tropical deforestation as
'immiserisation theory' and 'frontier theory.
'Immiserisation theory' attributes most
deforestation to expanding rural populations who,
having few economic resources, must clear
additional land for agriculture to meet their needs.
Reviewing deforestation in the Yaque del Norte,
Dominica, Kustudia (1998:32) writes 'Given their
circumstances, farmers have acted rationally, that
is they have done what they had to do to survive
in the short run.' These people live on the margins
of their society and it is that society that has
'fomented a climate in which agriculture has been
practised at the expense of the watershed's forests'
(
ibid.
: 32). Internationally, deforestation happens
because large landowners clear more land for
cattle; timber companies mine forest reserves—
logging indiscriminately and often illegally;
agribusiness and settlements expand: governments
support land tenure systems that favour
dispossession; and because war happens (Myers
1995). Such factors displace poor farmers, who are
forced to the margins and into the forest to eke
out a living (Dudley
et al
1995).
'Frontier theory' links deforestation to
agricultural coloniation and the expansion of a
developing nation's economy into its wilderness
areas, often a process of trial and error. Chomitz
CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION
Development and scarcity
In detail, many reasons are cited as causes for
tropical deforestation. Myers (1993) offers
population expansion, poverty, national
indebtedness, migration, economic development
and the expansion of road networks, and political
policies that offer perverse subsidies to destructive
practices (
cf
. Repetto and Gillis 1988). Tole (1998),
analysing data from ninety developing nations,
suggests that the twin processes driving
deforestation are development and scarcity.
Scarcity factors include population growth/
density, economic stress, value of extractable forest
products, pressures on the land encouraging
conversion to pasture or arable land, and
per capita
energy consumption because wood is a traditional
fuel (Bawa and Dayanandan 1997). For
development, Kaimowitz (1996) identifies the
seven processes that resulted in the replacement of
forest by pasture in Central America, 1979-94.
They were (1) favourable markets for livestock
products, (2) subsidised credit, (3) road
construction, (4) land tenure policies, (5) policies
that reduced timber values, (6) reduced levels of
political violence, and (7) improved cattle
husbandry.
Plate 14.2
Deforested
hillsides surround a new
hill station, Khasauli,
Himachal Pradesh (notice
the exposed rocks in the
deforested zone —the
original forest sustains up
to a metre deep layer of
soil).
