Land Change Science, Political Ecology, and Sustainability by Christian Brannstrom Jacqueline M. Vadjunec

Author:Christian Brannstrom, Jacqueline M. Vadjunec [Christian Brannstrom, Jacqueline M. Vadjunec]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138680074
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2016-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

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The fusion of political ecology and land change science to inform and contest transboundary integration in Amazonia

David S. Salisbury, Mariano Castro Sánchez-Moreno, Luís Dávalos Torres, Robert Guimaraes Vásquez, José Saito Diaz, Pedro Tipula Tipula, Andrés Treneman Young, Carlos Arana Courrejolles, Martin Arana Cardó, & the Grupo de Monitoreo de Megaproyectos Región Ucayali

Introduction

In the southwestern Amazon lies the Sierra del Divisor, an isolated cluster of mist-covered peaks and ridges rising out of the steamy lowland rainforest. The forests of these fiercely dissected crests and valleys still ring with the low grunt of jaguar and the thunderous clacks of hundreds-strong herds of white-lipped peccaries, while the canopy sways with troops of the rare red Uakari monkey. This biodiversity inspired the Serra do Divisor National Park, and its transboundary sister reserve, but these forests are also home to humans: the descendants of Ashéninka warriors and rubber tappers, a re-emergent Nawa people,1 and most elusive, the “uncontacted” Isconahua. These homelands and ecosystems are crisscrossed with the ephemeral scars made by more recent arrivals: loggers, miners, and drug traffickers. However, the most important line in the Sierra del Divisor is the border itself, the international boundary that follows the Sierra’s ridge dividing Peru’s Ucayali river basin from Brazil’s Juruá basin in the state of Acre. Relatively equidistant from the boundary ridgeline lie two cities, Ucayali’s capital of Pucallpa, and Western Acre’s commercial center, Cruzeiro do Sul. Both cities are the end of the road for their country’s network of thoroughfares. For now. Planners and government officials increasingly view the 160 kilometers of forest separating the two cities as a temporary obstruction to continental integration.

A road connecting the two cities would bisect the border and have an impact on flora, fauna, and people. This chapter documents the struggle against this road, a struggle to defend local livelihoods, flora, and fauna from a development initiative pushed at continental, national, and regional scales. In particular, we analyze the synergy of two divergent analytical approaches, land change science (LCS) and political ecology (PE), to gain the best understanding of the impacts of a transboundary road bridging the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon between the cities of Cruzeiro do Sul and Pucallpa.

This ongoing research results from the desire for formal political institutions, local land managers, and other interest groups to understand the vulnerability of the landscapes between the two Amazonian cities. A fusion of LCS and PE shows potential to inform policy through the methodological rigor and science-based framing of LCS, while the explanatory richness of PE promises to apprise local communities and energize the activist groups necessary to hold policy makers accountable over time. This chapter sites local people within the transboundary dynamics of an infrastructure corridor and investigates how local activists must grapple with the tensions between LCS and PE in order to have their voices heard over the continental-, national-, and regional-scale development discourse. First, we introduce the challenges of conducting activist research bridging disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Then we describe the transboundary region and analyze the infrastructure initiative in question.

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