The purpose of this work is to describe the historical, population, economic, and environmental conditions that led to the expansion of the agricultural and demographic frontier in the Peruvian high jungle, particularly in the Alto Huallaga basin, during the decades spanning from 1940 to the early 1980s. The text describes and analyzes how the dynamics of demographic frontier expansion, through highland-origin settler farmers, exerted intense pressure on natural resources, subsequent environmental degradation, and eventually regional demographic saturation. The migrant settlers continually reproduced their family units of production and consumption in frontier territories, thereby creating new natures and destroying others in the process. In this context, we aim to explore the links between demographic growth in the Alto Huallaga and the slash-and-burn agricultural systems that accompani...

The purpose of this work is to describe the historical, population, economic, and environmental conditions that led to the expansion of the agricultural and demographic frontier in the Peruvian high jungle, particularly in the Alto Huallaga basin, during the decades spanning from 1940 to the early 1980s. The text describes and analyzes how the dynamics of demographic frontier expansion, through highland-origin settler farmers, exerted intense pressure on natural resources, subsequent environmental degradation, and eventually regional demographic saturation. The migrant settlers continually reproduced their family units of production and consumption in frontier territories, thereby creating new natures and destroying others in the process.  In this context, we aim to explore the links between demographic growth in the Alto Huallaga and the slash-and-burn agricultural systems that acc...

Drawing on two studies and surveys carried out in the Upper Huallaga in 1981 and the VRAE in 2001, both located in the upper Peruvian amazon basin, this paper seeks to describe and analyze the historical and economic conditions under which coca cultivation for illicit purposes expanded in both regions. In this sense, it describes how this history shaped an inefficient and destructive migratory agriculture. Although the periods analyzed in each case are different, with a difference of twenty years between one and the other, the information we have is sufficiently valuable to establish a useful and valuable comparison. These are the two Amazonian regions that had the largest extension of coca plantations at the national level during the study period. When coca expanded in the Upper Huallaga, there was already a much more intense social and economic history of articulation with the market a...

The objective of this article is to describe and analyze the productive characteristics and the corresponding environmental impact of the small and medium extensive cattle ranching practiced by colonists-mestizos and settlers belonging to the Shuar ethnic group in the Morona canton, located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It is undisputable that there are forms of extensive livestock farming that are more sustainable than others, but we believe that the volume of land cleared is a problem that must be addressed. This production system is based on the movement of cattle between pastures on a farm due, among other things, to the low nutritional potential of the gramalote grass. This activity generates deforestation in large extensions of land. Among the factors that accentuate such levels of deforestation are, on the one hand, the larger size of the agricultural units and the need to compensate ...

This article is dedicated to the coca farmers of the VRAE. It shows that the abundance of «purmas» or secondary forest is due to the overuse of soils where coca is cultivated, the excessive use of modern or agrochemical inputs in these plantations and the traditional or empirical management of the cultivation of cacao and other annual crops. The high correlation between plot size and area in «purmas» is a true reflection of the fallow crisis in the VRAE. This crisis, however, is a result of the unsustainability of the aforementioned agricultural systems. The most important factors of this crisis are, on the one hand, an agricultural intensification of the cultivation of coca that degrades the soil and, on the other hand, an extensive use of the soil without a technological change in the case of legal crops. In both cases, the overall effect is the destruction of forests, deforestatio...

En este artículo argumentamos que  este  tipo de agricultura  para el caso del Valle del río Apurímac y Ene (VRAE), localizado en la región sur de selva alta peruana, seguía en funcionamiento durante los años del 2001 y 2004. En ese período han ocurrido cambios  en esta modalidad de uso del suelo,  pero éstos han sido realmente menores. Para ilustrar estos cambios, aprovechamos un estudio realizado hace 14 años  utilizándolo como testimonio histórico.  En este trabajo describimos las estrategias productivas de los colonos y su impacto en la deforestación. Nuestro argumento central es que la combinación de estrategias productivas de sobrevivencia de los colonos, algunas basadas en un uso intensivo del suelo, acompañado de cambio tecnológico y otras que recurren a formas de uso muy extensivo del suelo, tienen como objetivo central reducir el riesgo en un contexto dond...

Drawing on two studies and surveys carried out in the Upper Huallaga in 1981 and the VRAE in 2001, both located in the upper Peruvian amazon basin, this paper seeks to describe and analyze the historical and economic conditions under which coca cultivation for illicit purposes expanded in both regions. In this sense, it describes how this history shaped an inefficientand destructive migratory agriculture. Although the periods analyzed in each case are different, with a difference of twenty years between one and the other, the information we have is sufficiently valuable to establish a useful and valuable comparison. These are the two Amazonian regions that had the largest extension of coca plantations at the national level during the study period. When coca expanded in the Upper Huallaga, there was already a much more intense social and economic history of articulation with the market an...

El propósito central de este documento es describir y explicar las causas y consecuencias de un movimiento campesino acontecido a mediados de la década cincuenta, en la parte alta del valle del Huallaga, concretamente en el entonces complejo agro industrial Saipai. Dicho latifundio, ubicado a 30 Kms. de Tingo María en dirección Norte y cuya dimensión era de 15,000 hectáreas en aquella época, tuvo su origen en 1949 a raíz de un intento de colonización italiana en 'base a migrantes de origen campesino.

Los bosques en el Valle del río Apurímac y Ene (VRAE), la segunda región cocalera del Perú, son recursos comunes públicos que se manejan como privados por los agricultores principalmente cocaleros, sin un control efectivo de tal uso por parte del Estado. La necesidad de sobrevivencia de los agricultores cocaleros, su percepción crematística sobre el bosque, y la mayor o menos disponibilidad de tierras constituyen factores determinantes en el ritmo de deforestación del bosque primario y secundario. Variables tales como la legalidad de tenencia del predio no parecen tener influencia. Sin embargo, otros factores también institucionales facilitan una ocupación del espacio muy desordenada y destructiva, tales como las políticas de Estado en los procesos de titulación y la debilidad o ausencia del mismo.  Las organizaciones de base de los agricultores centradas en defender el cult...

The objective of this article is to describe and analyze the productive characteristics and the corresponding environmental impact of the small and medium extensive cattle ranching practiced by colonists-mestizos and settlers belonging to the Shuar ethnic group in the Morona canton, located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It is undisputable that there are forms of extensive livestock farming that are more sustainable than others, but we believe that the volume of land cleared is a problem that must be addressed. This production system is based on the movement of cattle between pastures on a farm due, among other things, to the low nutritional potential of the gramalote grass. This activity generates deforestation in large extensions of land. Among the factors that accentuate such levels of deforestation are, on the one hand, the larger size of the agricultural units and the need to compensate ...

El propósito central de este documento es describir y explicar las causas y consecuencias de un movimiento campesino acontecido a mediados de la década cincuenta, en la parte alta del valle del Huallaga, concretamente en el entonces complejo agro industrial Saipai. Dicho latifundio, ubicado a 30 Kms. de Tingo María en dirección Norte y cuya dimensión era de 15,000 hectáreas en aquella época, tuvo su origen en 1949 a raíz de un intento de colonización italiana en 'base a migrantes de origen campesino.

Drawing on two studies and surveys carried out in the Upper Huallaga in 1981 and the VRAE in 2001, both located in the upper Peruvian amazon basin, this paper seeks to describe and analyze the historical and economic conditions under which coca cultivation for illicit purposes expanded in both regions. In this sense, it describes how this history shaped an inefficient and destructive migratory agriculture. Although the periods analyzed in each case are different, with a difference of twenty years between one and the other, the information we have is sufficiently valuable to establish a useful and valuable comparison. These are the two Amazonian regions that had the largest extension of coca plantations at the national level during the study period. When coca expanded in the Upper Huallaga, there was already a much more intense social and economic history of articulation with the market a...

The objective of this article is to describe and analyze the productive characteristics and the corresponding environmental impact of the small and medium extensive cattle ranching practiced by colonists-mestizos and settlers belonging to the Shuar ethnic group in the Morona canton, located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It is undisputable that there are forms of extensive livestock farming that are more sustainable than others, but we believe that the volume of land cleared is a problem that must be addressed. This production system is based on the movement of cattle between pastures on a farm due, among other things, to the low nutritional potential of the gramalote grass. This activity generates deforestation in large extensions of land. Among the factors that accentuate such levels of deforestation are, on the one hand, the larger size of the agricultural units and the need to compensate ...

The purpose of this work is to describe the historical, population, economic, and environmental conditions that led to the expansion of the agricultural and demographic frontier in the Peruvian high jungle, particularly in the Alto Huallaga basin, during the decades spanning from 1940 to the early 1980s. The text describes and analyzes how the dynamics of demographic frontier expansion, through highland-origin settler farmers, exerted intense pressure on natural resources, subsequent environmental degradation, and eventually regional demographic saturation. The migrant settlers continually reproduced their family units of production and consumption in frontier territories, thereby creating new natures and destroying others in the process.  In this context, we aim to explore the links between demographic growth in the Alto Huallaga and the slash-and-burn agricultural systems that acc...

El propósito central de este documento es describir y explicar las causas y consecuencias de un movimiento campesino acontecido a mediados de la década cincuenta, en la parte alta del valle del Huallaga, concretamente en el entonces complejo agro industrial Saipai. Dicho latifundio, ubicado a 30 Kms. de Tingo María en dirección Norte y cuya dimensión era de 15,000 hectáreas en aquella época, tuvo su origen en 1949 a raíz de un intento de colonización italiana en 'base a migrantes de origen campesino.

This article is dedicated to the coca farmers of the VRAE. It shows that the abundance of «purmas» or secondary forest is due to the overuse of soils where coca is cultivated, the excessive use of modern or agrochemical inputs in these plantations and the traditional or empirical management of the cultivation of cacao and other annual crops. The high correlation between plot size and area in «purmas» is a true reflection of the fallow crisis in the VRAE. This crisis, however, is a result of the unsustainability of the aforementioned agricultural systems. The most important factors of this crisis are, on the one hand, an agricultural intensification of the cultivation of coca that degrades the soil and, on the other hand, an extensive use of the soil without a technological change in the case of legal crops. In both cases, the overall effect is the destruction of forests, deforestatio...

El objetivo del presente artículo es analizar y describir los factores históricos, institucionales y estructurales de la deforestación teniendo en cuenta la dinámica de intensificación o «extensificación» de uso del suelo en la región amazónica de Tena, en Ecuador. Una primera conclusión fue constatar la reproducción de una agricultura extensiva en Tena como un importante agente directo de la deforestación. Creemos que dicho sistema agrícola se origina en procesos históricos, desde la década de 1960, cuando el Estado ecuatoriano interviene fomentando ciertas políticas de ocupación extensiva del suelo, a través de la construcción de caminos de penetración y algunas modalidades específicas de titulación de tierras. Las dinámicas sociales e institucionales actuales no han logrado revertir tal situación, pues la deforestación se sigue reproduciendo, a pesar de que e...

This article explains how the family productive strategies of farmer settlers and their perceptions of the forest influence the rate of deforestation. This particular approach, based on the analysis of endogenous processes, seeks to contextualize and understand how farmers operate within a context of «forest transition», as a result of significant economic changes, market expansion and road infrastructuredevelopment. Our central argument is that the farmers’ strategies in Tena, in relation to the rate of deforestation on their farms, are a result of the combination of a set of economic processes of survival in the short and medium term and of their mental or cultural perceptions of the forest. Such endogenous processes arenot only responses to external contexts but are also derived from demographic cycles and accumulation dynamics that occur within the families of producers.

Este artículo explica la forma como las estrategias productivas familiares de los colonos agricultores y las percepciones que los agricultores tienen sobre el bosque influyen en el ritmo de deforestación. Este tipo de enfoque, basado en el análisis de procesos endógenos, procura contextualizar y entender cómo los agricultores funcionan dentro de un contexto de «transición forestal», resultado de significativos cambios económicos, expansión del mercado y desarrollo de la infraestructura vial. Nuestro argumento central es que las indicadas estrategias de los agricultores en el cantón de Tena, en relación con el ritmo de deforestación en sus fincas, se construyen como resultado de la combinación de un conjunto de procesos económicos de sobrevivencia a corto y mediano plazo y desde los cuales se elaboran percepciones mentales o culturales sobre el bosque. Tales procesos endóg...

This article explains how the family productive strategies of farmer settlers and their perceptions of the forest influence the rate of deforestation. This particular approach, based on the analysis of endogenous processes, seeks to contextualize and understand how farmers operate within a context of «forest transition», as a result of significant economic changes, market expansion and road infrastructuredevelopment. Our central argument is that the farmers’ strategies in Tena, in relation to the rate of deforestation on their farms, are a result of the combination of a set of economic processes of survival in the short and medium term and of their mental or cultural perceptions of the forest. Such endogenous processes arenot only responses to external contexts but are also derived from demographic cycles and accumulation dynamics that occur within the families of producers.