Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon: Threats to Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The western Amazon is the most biologically rich part of the Amazon basin and is home to a great diversity of indigenous ethnic groups, including some of the world’s last uncontacted peoples living in voluntary isolation. Unlike the eastern Brazilian Amazon, it is still a largely intact ecosystem. Underlying this landscape are large reserves of oil and gas, many yet untapped. The growing global demand is leading to unprecedented exploration and development in the region. Without improved policies, the increasing scope and magnitude of planned extraction means that environmental and social impacts are likely to intensify. We review the most pressing oil- and gas-related conservation policy issues confronting the region. These include the need for regional Strategic Environmental Impact Assessments and the adoption of roadless extraction techniques. We also consider the conflicts where the blocks overlap indigenous peoples’ territories

The remittances of migrant Tongan and Samoan nurses from Australia

BACKGROUND: Migration and remittances are of considerable importance in the small Pacific island states. There has been a significant migration of skilled health workers in recent decades to metropolitan fringe states, including Australia and New Zealand. This paper reports the findings of a re-analysis of survey of Samoan and Tongan migrants in Australia where the sample is split between nurse households and others. METHODS: The study analyzes the survey data with a view to comparing the remittance behaviour and determinants of remittances for nurses and other migrant households, using both descriptive, cross-tabulations and appropriate econometric methods. RESULTS: It is found that a significantly higher proportion of nurse households sent remittances home, and, on average remitted more. Remittances of nurse households did not decline significantly over time contrary to what has generally been predicted. This was in contrast to other migrant households in the sample, for whom remittances showed a sharp decline after 15 years absence. Remittances contribute much more to the income of migrant sending countries, than the cost of the additional human capital in nurse training. CONCLUSIONS: Given the shortage of nurses in Australia and New Zealand, and therefore the high demand for immigrant nurses, investment by Pacific island governments and families in nurse training constitutes a rational use of economic resources. Policies encouraging investment in home countries may be more effective than policies directly discouraging brain drain in contributing to national development

The effects of migrant remittances on population–environment dynamics in migrant origin areas: international migration, fertility, and consumption in highland Guatemala

International migration impacts origin regions in many ways. As examples, remittances from distant migrants may alter consumption patterns within sending communities, while exposure to different cultural norms may alter other behaviors. This paper combines these insights to offer a unique lens on migration’s environmental impact. From an environmental perspective, we ask the following question: is the likely rise in consumption brought about by remittances counterbalanced by a reduction in fertility in migrant households following exposure to lower fertility cultures? Based on ethnographic case studies in two western highland Guatemalan communities, we argue that the near-term rise in consumption due to remittances is not counterbalanced by rapid decline in migrant household fertility. However, over time, the environmental cost of consumption may be mitigated at the community level through diffusion of contraception and family planning norms yielding lower family size

Rural-to-Urban Labor Migration, Household Livelihoods, and the Rural Environment in Chongqing Municipality, Southwest China

Rural migration and its relationship to the rural environment have attracted increasing research interest in recent decades. Rural migration constitutes a key component of human population movement, while rural areas contain most of the world’s natural resources such as land and forests. This study empirically evaluates a conceptual framework incorporating rural household livelihoods as an integrative mediating factor between rural migration and the rural environment in the context of rural-to-urban labor migration in Chongqing Municipality, Southwest China. The analysis draws on data collected through household surveys and key informant interviews from four villages. Results confirm the hypothesis that labor-migrant and non-labor-migrant households differ significantly in livelihood activities including agricultural production, agricultural technology use, income and consumption, and resource use and management. Implications for the subsequent environmental outcomes of rural labor out-migration and corresponding natural resource management and policy in rural origin areas are discussed

Migration Within the Frontier: The Second Generation Colonization in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Ecuadorian Amazon, Rural–urban migration, Rural–rural migration, Agricultural colonization, Farm/household lifecycle, Multinomial model,

Urban migration of adolescent girls: Quantitative results from developing countries

This chapter assembles a quantitative portrait of the adolescent girls who migrate to the cities and towns of poor countries, drawing mainly on a large collection of data from demographic surveys and census micro-samples. For adolescent girls and young women, migration puts important urban resources within reach, in the form of access to higher levels of schooling, more varied labor markets and employment opportunities, and multiple levels of health-care institutions. But while the move is underway and until she locates a safe home in her new location, an adolescent girl can confront a range of social and sexual risks that can threaten her well-being and thwart hopes for advancement. Much of the literature on adolescent migration is focused on these risks but neglects the potential benefits. We find that in many countries, significant percentages of urban adolescent girls are recent in-migrants. In characterizing their life-circumstances, we give special attention to indicators of social isolation, the conditions of housing and neighborhood, and school enrollment. We show that adolescent girl migrants are a highly diverse group, advantaged in some respects and disadvantaged in others. Field studies in urban India shed light on the difficulties with which girls must cope as they strive to adapt to urban life

PASHAMAMA: an agricultural process-driven agent-based model of the Ecuadorian Amazon

International audienceThis article presents the PASHAMAMA model that aims at studying the situation in the northern part of the Amazonian region of Ecuador in which the intensive oil extraction has induced a high rise of population, pollution, agricultural work and deforestation. It simulates these dynamics impacts on both environment and population by examining exposure and demography over time thanks to a retro-prospective and spatially explicit agent-based approach. Based on a previous work that has introduced roads, immigration and pollution (induced by the oil industry) dynamics, we focus here on the agricultural and the oil salaried work sides of the model. Unlike many models that are highly focused on the use of quantitative data, we choose a process-based approach and rest on qualitative data extracted from interviews with the local population: farmers are not represented by highly cognitive agents, but only attempt to fulfill their local objectives by fulfilling sequentially their constraints (e.g. eating before earning money). We also introduce a new evaluation method based on satellite pictures that compares simulated to “real” data on a thematic division of the environment