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Science 12 June 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5933, pp. 1435 - 1437
DOI: 10.1126/science.1174002
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Reports

Boom-and-Bust Development Patterns Across the Amazon Deforestation Frontier

Ana S. L. Rodrigues,1,2,3,* Robert M. Ewers,4 Luke Parry,5 Carlos Souza, Jr.,6 Adalberto Veríssimo,6 Andrew Balmford1

The Brazilian Amazon is globally important for biodiversity, climate, and geochemical cycles, but is also among the least developed regions in Brazil. Economic development is often pursued through forest conversion for cattle ranching and agriculture, mediated by logging. However, on the basis of an assessment of 286 municipalities in different stages of deforestation, we found a boom-and-bust pattern in levels of human development across the deforestation frontier. Relative standards of living, literacy, and life expectancy increase as deforestation begins but then decline as the frontier evolves, so that pre- and postfrontier levels of human development are similarly low. New financial incentives and policies are creating opportunities for a more sustained development trajectory that is not based on the depletion of nature and ecosystem services.

1 Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
2 IN+, Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, Environment and Energy Section, Mechanical Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal.
3 Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, CNRS UMR5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, France.
4 Division of Biology, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK.
5 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
6 IMAZON–Amazon Institute of People and the Environment, Belém, PA, Brazil.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ana.rodrigues{at}cefe.cnrs.fr

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)