Drivers of agricultural frontier expansion in Mato Grosso

Abstract

The accelerated rate of land usage and the heightened incidence of fires as historically seen in the Legal Amazon Region have reached alarming proportions and have attracted the attention of politicians, environmentalists and society in general. Different policies, strategies and monitoring and control actions have been proposed, with the objective of containing the advance of the agricultural frontier on remaining areas of natural vegetation, specifically on Humid Tropical Forest areas. The state of Mato Grosso, which is located in the Legal Amazon Region, presents special characteristics for the understanding of relationships between land use and occupation and the incidence of fires due to the convergence of important environmental diversity and socio-economic actors. This paper focuses on the dynamics of burns in this state, by identifying some of the principal contributing factors based on spatial-statistical analysis. The results show the existence of different spatial and temporal patterns that influence the occurrence of fires. These patterns point to the limitations of simplistic and generalized adaptation of localized information and burn quantification, whatever their spatial delimitation, for the purpose of elaborating public policies that aim to definitively change the chronic emergency of fires in the Legal Amazon Region.