The recent decoupling of deforestation and soybean production has raised optimistic expectations towards enhanced land use sustainability in the SouthEastern Amazon agricultural frontier. Nonetheless , assessing land use sustainability implies not only the consideration of how agricultural activities affect natural ecosystems but also how they impact on society and how society can cope with them. We review some of the forthcoming challenges that the agricultural sector should address to confirm its significant progress towards land use sustainability. Firstly, we assess the recent efforts to adopt environmentally friendly practices with regard to the ongoing intensification process mainly based on double cropping systems. Secondly, while rapid agricultural development has brought major social advances, we evidence a recent trend towards a decoupling of soy production and the Human Development Index at municipality level. We then put this result into perspective considering that the trend towards agricultural intensification based on the use of large amounts of agrochemicals could lead to major health concerns which are still too rarely considered. Finally, we discuss how the recent efficient policies to contain deforestation in the Amazon can cause indirect land use changes in the Brazilian Cerrados and in African Savannas, thus potentially leading to an "illusion of preservation" at global scale. We conclude that new indicators involving social sciences are necessary to better address the complexity of land use sustainability on the still very dynamic agricultural frontier in the SouthEastern Amazon.
The recent decoupling of deforestation and soybean production has raised optimistic expectations towards enhanced land use sustainability in the SouthEastern Amazon agricultural frontier. Nonetheless , assessing land use sustainability implies not only the consideration of how agricultural activities affect natural ecosystems but also how they impact on society and how society can cope with them. We review some of the forthcoming challenges that the agricultural sector should address to confirm its significant progress towards land use sustainability. Firstly, we assess the recent efforts to adopt environmentally friendly practices with regard to the ongoing intensification process mainly based on double cropping systems. Secondly, while rapid agricultural development has brought major social advances, we evidence a recent trend towards a decoupling of soy production and the Human Development Index at municipality level. We then put this result into perspective considering that the trend towards agricultural intensification based on the use of large amounts of agrochemicals could lead to major health concerns which are still too rarely considered. Finally, we discuss how the recent efficient policies to contain deforestation in the Amazon can cause indirect land use changes in the Brazilian Cerrados and in African Savannas, thus potentially leading to an "illusion of preservation" at global scale. We conclude that new indicators involving social sciences are necessary to better address the complexity of land use sustainability on the still very dynamic agricultural frontier in the SouthEastern Amazon.
Titre
en
Land use sustainability on the South-Eastern Amazon agricultural frontier: Recent progress and the challenges ahead
Auteur(s)
Damien Arvor1
, Isabelle Tritsch2
, Christovam Barcellos3
, Nicolas Jégou4
, Vincent Dubreuil1
1
LETG -
Littoral, Environnement, Télédétection, Géomatique UMR 6554
( 14266 )
- Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer - Technopôle Brest-Iroise - Place Nicolas Copernic 29280 Plouzané
- France
Université de Caen Normandie ( 7127 )
;
Normandie Université ( 455934 )
;
Université d'Angers ( 74911 )
;
École Pratique des Hautes Études ( 110691 )
;
Université Paris Sciences et Lettres ( 564132 )
;
Université de Brest ( 300314 )
;
Université de Rennes 2 ( 406201 )
;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR 6554 ( 441569 )
;
Institut de Géographie et d'Aménagement Régional de l'Université de Nantes ( 530572 )
;
Université de Nantes 93263 ( 93263 )
2
CREDA -
CREDA - Centre de Recherche Et de Documentation sur les Amériques - UMR 7227
( 156854 )
- 5, cours des Humanités
93300 Aubervilliers
- France
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 ( 52995 )
;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR7227 ( 441569 )
3
FIOCRUZ -
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz / Oswaldo Cruz Foundation
( 488707 )
- Av. Brasil, 4365 - Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro
- Brésil
Réseau International des Instituts Pasteur ( 301247 )
4
IRMAR -
Institut de Recherche Mathématique de Rennes
( 75 )
- Campus de Beaulieu, bâtiments 22 et 23,
263 avenue du Général Leclerc, CS 74205
35042 RENNES Cédex
- France
Université de Rennes ( 105160 )
;
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes ( 117606 )
;
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées ( 301232 )
;
École normale supérieure - Rennes ( 247362 )
;
Université de Rennes 2 ( 406201 )
;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR6625 ( 441569 )
;
INSTITUT AGRO Agrocampus Ouest ( 1090536 )
;
Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement ( 1042499 )
Nom de la revue
Applied Geography
(ISSN : 0143-6228)
Publié par Elsevier
Revue non référencée dans Sherpa-Romeo
ODYSSEA
- OBSERVATORY OF THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SOCIETIES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE AMAZON
Numéro CORDIS :
691053
Domaine(s)
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Géographie
Financement
The authors wish to thank (i) the French National Agency for Research (ANR) which funded the DURAMAZ2 project (grant agreement ANR-11-BSH1-0003), (ii) the USP-COFECUB project “Public Policies and Impacts of Climate Change at Local & Regional Scale on Fragile Areas” (Uc-Sh-131/11) and (iii) the European Union which funded the H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 ODYSSEA project (Project Reference: 691053).
Mots-clés
en
Indirect land use change, Global change, Human health, Land use sustainability, Agricultural intensification, Amazon agricultural frontier
Damien Arvor, Isabelle Tritsch, Christovam Barcellos, Nicolas Jégou, Vincent Dubreuil. Land use sustainability on the South-Eastern Amazon agricultural frontier: Recent progress and the challenges ahead. Applied Geography, 2017, 80, pp.86 - 97. ⟨10.1016/j.apgeog.2017.02.003⟩. ⟨halshs-01491579⟩