Author Archives: patrickmeyfroidt

Our work on Northern Mozambique starts from the premise that this region might constitute an emerging frontier for land use investments and expansion. Before digging into the question of whether this premise is verified, let us discuss why we focus on “emerging frontiers”.  A large share of current agricultural expansion and deforestation takes place inContinue reading “Challenges in emerging frontiers”

This blog post is based on Bey et al. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ac26ab and this Twitter thread In this study we present a remote sensing technique to map tree plantations with high accuracy in a challenging context (Miombo dry forests, little spectral & phenological differences between plantations and natural forests). We show that in Northern Mozambique, ~70%Continue reading “Mapping large-scale tree plantation expansion and land use change trajectories in Northern Mozambique”

This blog post is based on Rodriguez García et al. 2021 https://doi.org/10.3390/f12040431 and this Twitter thread Many works assess Environmental Kuznets curve for forest; but crucial is to understand mechanisms linking economic development and de/reforestation (governance, changing economies, technologies, displacement..?). We assess this in this study using a co-integration approach on a long-term cross-country panelContinue reading “Theories on Long- and Short-Run Forest Dynamics: Forest Transition, Environmental Kuznets Curve, Ecologically Unequal Exchange”

This blog post is based on Kronenburg García et al. 2022 https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13159-270140 and this Twitter thread Thick ethnographic study in Niassa (Mozambique). Niassa is often described as the “forgotten” province of Mozambique – large, remote, sparsely populated, poor; but has also been “marketed” by the government as a land of opportunities with abundant natural resourcesContinue reading “How do successive waves of pioneers and investors build the conditions for land-use frontiers to emerge?”

This blog post is based on Abeygunawardane et al. 2022 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01682-z and this Twitter thread by @dilini_abey We looked at transnational agriculture and forestry investments in understudied frontiers in Southern and Eastern Africa across Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Our sample covers ~11% of the investments recorded in the four target countries. We reconstructed theContinue reading “Resource frontiers and agglomeration economies: Understanding the diversity of investment logics in Southern and Eastern Africa”

This blog post builds on Rodriguez García et al. (2020) https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8b14 Agricultural intensification can allow sparing land for nature, but it can also drive further expansion of cropland, i.e. a rebound effect. Conversely, constraints on cropland expansion may induceintensification. We used an innovative cointegration approach to assess long and short-run mutual causation relationships between changesContinue reading “Complex relations between agricultural intensification and land use change: Assessing induced intensification, land sparing and rebound effect”

This website needs some more activity, and as we are step by step publishing and publicizing outputs from the MIDLAND project, it seems time to kick-off this blog section.In a first series of blogs, we will compile info on key outputs of the project already published, and which were synthesized on Twitter. So, let’s startContinue reading “Mapping smallholder and large-scale cropland dynamics in an emerging frontier of Mozambique”