The effect of environmental change on out-migration in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest
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The effect of environmental change on out-migration in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest Alexandre Gori Maia 1
& Stella
Zucchetti Schons 2
# Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract We study how environmental change affects out-migration in the Brazilian Amazon using census data on municipal-level migration flows between 2005 and 2010. We characterize environmental change in terms of increases in municipal deforested area and gradual changes in temperature and precipitation as well as extreme weather events. Our empirical analysis is based on gravity models of migration, which consider simultaneously characteristics of origins and destinations as determinants of migration flows, treating for potential sources of endogeneity. We find evidence that outmigration from the Amazon region of Brazil is mainly associated with prior levels of deforestation, which is partially explained by the life cycle channel: a younger generation leaving the old frontier of colonization to an aging population. Furthermore, the links between environmental change and migration are more evident in the context of rural-urban and intra-regional migration, contributing to the process of urbanization in the Amazon. Keywords Out-migration . Rural development . Gravity model . Deforestation . Climate
change
Introduction The manner in which environmental change, expected or realized, may affect migration flows is a topic of growing debate in the academic and policy literatures (Bardsley and Hugo 2010; Kuhn 2015), especially with the prospects of climate change (Opitz
* Alexandre Gori Maia [email protected] Stella Zucchetti Schons [email protected]
1
University of Campinas, Rua Pitagoras 353, Campinas, SP CEP 13083-857, Brazil
2
Virginia Tech, 228C Cheatham Hall, 310 West Campus Dr., Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
Population and Environment
Sapleton et al. 2017) and related climate distress (Backhaus et al. 2015). However, disentangling environment-related factors from traditional drivers of migration has proved to be a challenging task (Gray and Bilsborrow 2013). That may be especially true in regions on the development frontier, where governments often provide incentives for the development of economic activities and/or where land ownership rights are not well defined nor enforced, leading to land speculation, deforestation, and consequently, climatic change. In this article, we use municipal-level data on migration flows between 2005 and 2010 from the Brazil 2010 census to analyze how environmental change is related to out-migration flows from the Brazilian Amazon. We express environmental change in terms of municipal deforestation rate changes and gradual changes in temperature and precipitation as well as extreme weather events. Our results present strong evidence that environmental change, especially deforestation, is related to out-migration in the region. Former empirical studies on migration performed at the household level have found some evidence of environmental change factors affecting the decision to migrate. For example, declines in agri
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