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Regional integration and local change: road paving, community connectivity, and social–ecological resilience in a tri-national frontier, southwestern Amazonia

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Abstract

Initiatives for global economic integration increasingly prioritize new infrastructure in relatively remote regions. Such regions have relatively intact ecosystems and provide valuable ecosystem services, which has stimulated debates over the wisdom of new infrastructure. Most prior research on infrastructure impacts highlights economic benefits, ecological damage, or social conflicts. We suggest a more integrative approach to regional integration by appropriating the concepts of connectivity from transport geography and social–ecological resilience from systems ecology. Connectivity offers a means of observing the degree of integration between locations, and social–ecological resilience provides a framework to simultaneously consider multiple consequences of regional integration. Together, they offer a spatial analysis of resilience that considers multiple dimensions of infrastructure impacts. Our study case is the southwestern Amazon, a highly biodiverse region which is experiencing integration via paving of the Inter-Oceanic Highway. Specifically, we focus on the “MAP” region, a tri-national frontier where Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru meet and which differs in the extent of highway paving. We draw on a tri-national survey of more than 100 resource-dependent rural communities across the MAP frontier and employ indicators for multiple dimensions of connectivity and social–ecological resilience. We pursue a comparative analysis among regions and subregions with differing degrees of community connectivity to markets in order to evaluate their social–ecological resilience. The findings indicate that connectivity and resilience have a multifaceted relationship, such that greater community connectivity corresponds to greater resilience in some respects but not others. We conclude by noting how our findings integrate those from heretofore largely disparate literatures on infrastructure. The integration of transport geography with resilience thought thus stands to advance the study of infrastructure impacts.

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Notes

  1. In Acre, because of inconsistencies in definitions of communities among informants, we employed state-defined land tenure units. This reduced the number of communities ostensibly sampled in Acre, but our weighted analysis (see note 2) offsets that by taking into account community size, so Acre is not underrepresented.

  2. Table 1 presents unweighted analysis for highway paving and community size. We did not weight the paving variable as the key there is how many communities have access to paved highways, and not weighting gives a more accurate appraisal of the geographic extent of paving among communities. We did not weight community size because that is the variable used for weighting, and would have yielded distorted results.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for this research came from the National Science Foundation, Human and Social Dynamics Program, Grant #0527511, and from the US Agency for International Development, Latin America and Caribbean program in Environment, Cooperative Agreements RLA-A-00-06-00071-00 and 512-A-00-08-00003-00. The coauthors are coordinators and field team leaders of the socioeconomic component of the NSF grant, and they thank the other collaborators who contributed to the community survey fieldwork and data entry in Madre de Dios, Peru (Angélica Almeyda, Wendy Cueva Cueto, Eder Nicanor Chilla Pfuro, Boris Arguedas, Erika Quispe Ruiz, Andrea Chávez, Rafael Rojas), Acre, Brazil (Karla Rocha, Jesus Melo, Vera Gurgel), and Pando, Bolivia (Kelly Biedenweg, Dave Elliott, Alexander Shenkin). For logistical support, we thank Veronica Passos, Bertha Ikeda, and Daniel Rojas. For helpful suggestions, we thank Julio Rojas, Frank P. de la Barra, Amy Duchelle, Valerio Gomes, and Jacqueline Vadjunec.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Criminology and Law, University of Florida, 3219 Turlington Hall, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Stephen G. Perz

  2. Dirección de Interacción Social, Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Cobija, Pando, Bolivia

    Liliana Cabrera

  3. Departamento de Economia e Mestrado em Desenvolvimento Regional, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil

    Lucas Araújo Carvalho

  4. Departamento Académico de Ecoturismo y Administración, Universidad Nacional Amazónica de Madre de Dios, Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru

    Jorge Castillo, Rosmery Chacacanta & Yeni Franco Solano

  5. School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Rosa E. Cossio

  6. Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Jeffrey Hoelle

  7. SENAMHI, Iñapari, Madre de Dios, Peru

    Leonor Mercedes Perales

  8. Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Cobija, Pando, Bolivia

    Israel Puerta

  9. Departamento de Ciencias Biologicas y Naturales, Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Cobija, Pando, Bolivia

    Daniel Rojas Céspedes

  10. Departamento de Informática, Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Cobija, Pando, Bolivia

    Ioav Rojas Camacho

  11. Mestrado em Desenvolvimento Regional, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil

    Adão Costa Silva

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  1. Stephen G. Perz
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Correspondence to Stephen G. Perz.

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Perz, S.G., Cabrera, L., Carvalho, L.A. et al. Regional integration and local change: road paving, community connectivity, and social–ecological resilience in a tri-national frontier, southwestern Amazonia. Reg Environ Change 12, 35–53 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-011-0233-x

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