The land managers who have lost control of their land use: implications for sustainability

This paper explores the conditions under which local land managers in the tropical world lose some control over their land use. Driving forces of land use change within the control of a community are referred to as endogenous, while exogenous forces are considered to be out of control of local land managers. It is argued that, with economic liberalization and globalisation, driving forces of land use are becoming increasingly exogenous to the communities holding land under transformation, which has major implications for the transition to sustainability. Supportive evidence is taken from most recent international comparative studies of land use and land cover change, with cases mainly taken from the tropics. They were evaluated by means of a framework to analyse causes of land change. Both original case studies, following a common data protocol, and indirect meta-analyses indicate that synergetic factor combination drive land-use changes. Prominent among them are people's responses to economic opportunities as mediated by institutional factors. From a local land manager's perspective, these opportunities and constraints for new land uses are created by markets and policies, increasingly influenced by external global factors.

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