Trans-boundary infrastructure, access connectivity, and household land use in a tri-national frontier in the Southwestern Amazon

Abstract

The land science literature has consistently documented the importance of infrastructure for land use. Less attention has gone to land use around national borders receiving trans-boundary infrastructure upgrades for cross-border integration. We take up the case of the Inter-Oceanic Highway, a trans-boundary road being paved in the tri-national ‘MAP’ frontier of the southwestern Amazon. We draw on a tri-national survey of households in rural communities across the MAP frontier to evaluate the effects of access connectivity on land use. At the time of fieldwork, paving was complete in Acre/Brazil, underway in Madre de Dios/Peru, and planned in Pando/Bolivia. This permits a tri-national comparative analysis. The results confirm different effects of access connectivity on land use by paving status; further, they also document cross-border processes stemming from trans-boundary infrastructure that affect land use. The findings call for more attention to the impacts of regional integration initiatives on landscapes.