Food security and forest cover in Caatinga
We found a nuanced scenario with both synergies (win-win and lose-lose)
and trade-offs (win-lose and lose-win) between food security and forest
cover occurring in nearly similar proportions in the Caatinga. The
combination represented by the negative synergy (lose-lose) between
forest cover and food security is thought to be the worst scenario where
an increasing food insecurity can be worsened by loss of natural
resources (Meyfroidt,
2018). Many of these municipalities are located in a northeastern-to
southwestern axis which is experiencing an expansion of a
commodity-driven economy (fruit plantation and soybean) that exerts a
pressure of deforestation and concentrates wealth
(Weinhold et
al., 2013). Double positive scenarios where both forest cover and food
security increases may represent development moments when poverty
alleviation and politics for reducing inequality are decoupled from
deforestation and must probably rely on services and industry rather
than agricultural expansion, combined with forest protection policies
(Liu et al.,
2017). Municipalities that lost forest and gained food security are
probably experiencing the initial phases of commodity-driven development
when a rapid increase in socioeconomic indicators derive from the
establishment of new agricultural frontiers as already shown for the
Amazon deforestation frontier
(Rodrigues et
al., 2009). The other side of this tradeoff where municipalities
present net gains of forest cover but food security decreases may
represent the “bust” phase of commodity-driven economy when land
abandonment occurs due to the displacement of agricultural frontiers to
cheaper lands leaving behind a poor and unequal society
(Barbier & Hochard,
2018). Both types of tradeoffs resemble the initial and final phases of
“boom-and-bust” development, respectively
(Barbier, 2020).