Coca and Colonists: Quantifying and Explaining Forest Clearance under Coca and Anti-Narcotics Policy Regimes

摘要: The impacts of coca cultivation and eradication on rates humid tropical forest clearance were examined in the agricultural colonization zone Chapare, Bolivia. Using satellite image-derived land-use maps, interviews with farmers, analyses economic data policy documents, analyzed three contrasting communities from 1963 to 2003. Deforestation very low late 1970s early 1990s when was widespread anti-coca policies weakly enforced. Before after this period, deforestation significantly higher. This study provides first detailed quantitative analysis under different regimes a source region. It weak support for argument that labor constraints lead reduction during periods advanced by Kaimowitz (1997); but stronger Henkel’s (1995) hypothesis farmers would clear large areas abandoning maintain household incomes. However, arguments based alone are inadequate explaining region, political ecological approach drivers framework better explains dynamics.