Deforestation dynamics in Brazil's Amazonian settlements: Effects of land-tenure concentration.

Brazil's Amazon deforestation is a major global and national environmental concern, and the ability to model and project both its course and the effect of different policy options depends on understanding how this process occurs at present and how it might change in the future. The present paper addresses one key factor in Amazon deforestation: land-tenure concentration in settlements. Brazil's policies for establishing and regulating settlement projects represent critical government decisions shaping the landscape in the 5 × 10 km Legal Amazonia region.