Demographic mobility, the environment, and use of the land in border areas: a multi-scale approach

Abstract

Historically, demographic mobility has been one of the most important determinants in areas where there has been deforesting and deterioration of natural resources. “Multi-scale” analytic approaches are especially appropriate for dealing with this type of relationship between demographic mobility, environment and the use of the land as the result of the interaction of factors in different but interconnected scales and levels of spatial and temporal analysis. But little research has been done in identifying concurrent factors on these different scales and at different levels that affect this relationship. Much of the literature gives stronger emphasis to the study of aggregated data and less to micro-analysis (individuals and households and their evolution in time). The focus has been the impact on the tropical forests and not necessarily on the living conditions and mobility of the migrant families who are directly responsible for a high proportion of these impacts. This article presents a discussion on theoretical and methodological aspects of a multi-scale approach to the study of the relationships between demographic mobility, environment, and the use of the land. It also presents an empirical example in an area of agricultural colonization in the equatorial Amazon Basin.