Demographic dynamics, livelihoods and land use change in the Brazilian Amazonia: a longitudinal study for the Machadinho Region, 1985 to 2010

Alisson F. Barbieri, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Gilvan R. Guedes, Brown University

This paper discusses how the changing nature of land use and household livelihoods in the Brazilian Amazonia over time may be explained by the changing demographic composition, their access and diversification of sources of income and welfare, and stages of development of frontier settlements. We use as case study a colonization project in the municipality of Machadinho, occupied since 1984. We build on two theories that place key individual and collective decisions at the household level: "household life cycle", and "livelihood approaches". These theories are particularly useful in understanding the many components of colonist´s decision-making, individual aspirations of income and welfare, collective needs of familiar group(s) in rural settings, and how they are mediated by the context in which these decisions are made. We use a longitudinal panel of plots and their related households based on field surveys carried out in 1985/ 1986 and 1995 (1,742 farm households); and 2010 (a sample of 259 farm households). We finally discuss how changing livelihood options are impacted and have consequences depending on the scale of analysis (household, communities, the larger political and institutional context), which poses a challenge for public policy interventions regarding sustainable livelihoods and land use in the Amazonia.