A Tropical Forest Transition? Agricultural Change, Out-migration, and Secondary Forests in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Could old colonization zones in the urbanizing and industrializing countries of Latin America become sites for a tropical forest transition in which reforestation becomes more prevalent than deforestation? We try to answer this question through a case study of land-use change and migration since 1985 in a long-settled region of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Data from remote sensing analyses, household surveys, and land-use maps of individual farms reveal two disparate patterns of reforestation in the region, one on peripheral lands far from roads and the other on lands close to roads. The former pattern characterizes most places experiencing a forest transition; the latter pattern does not. Roadside reforestation has occurred in part because Amerindian smallholders have abandoned cattle ranching in order to practice short-cycle shifting cultivation of crops for expanding urban and export markets. This example suggests that tropical forest transitions may differ from earlier temperate forest transitions in that reforestation does not signify land abandonment. Even as they come to rely more completely on nonfarm sources of income, smallholders in developing countries continue to manage their land, reforesting when it eliminates expenses or promises new, near-term streams of income.