In recent years, there has been a rise in foreign and domestic large-scale land acquisitions—defined as being at least roughly one square mile—in Latin America, Asia, and Africa where investing countries and multinational investors take out long-term contracts to use the land for various enterprises.
In recent years, there has been a rise in foreign and domestic large-scale land acquisitions—defined as being at least roughly one square mile—in Latin America, Asia, and Africa where investing countries and multinational investors take out long-term contracts to use the land for various enterprises.
In some cases, this leads to the creation of new jobs for local communities, and governments often welcome these investments as a means to promote the transfer of technologies and the inflow of capital. But the investments can also have adverse outcomes for local people, who rely on the acquired areas for food and income but have no legal claim to the land, and the environment— as the land will likely need to be converted to serve its intended use.
An international group of researchers led by the University of Delaware’s Kyle Davis has recently published a study in Nature Geoscience to see which types of large-scale land investments may be associated with increases in tropical deforestation. They found that investment types focusing on establishing new tree plantations — where an area is cleared of existing trees and planted with a single tree species that is harvested for timber — as well as plantations for producing palm oil and wood fiber, consistently had higher rates of forest loss than surrounding non-investment areas.
Read more at: University of Delaware
UD Assistant Professor Kyle Davis has published a new study that looks at which types of large-scale land investments may be associated with increases in tropical deforestation. Davis is pictured here doing fieldwork in central Mozambique when members of the research group were visiting forest concessions and large-scale agricultural investments. This particular photo is from inside a Eucalyptus plantation. (Photo Credit: Kyle Davis)
