Explaining the emergence of land-use frontiers

Area of Science:

• Sustainability Science
• Environmental Geography
• Resource Management

Background:

• Land-use expansion presents significant sustainability challenges, including climate change, food security, and biodiversity loss.
• Frontiers, areas of rapid resource exploitation and transformation, are central to this expansion, yet the emergence of frontiers in marginal territories is poorly understood.
• Existing research primarily explains the advancement of active frontiers, particularly in tropical forests, neglecting the initial emergence phase.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize conceptual tools for understanding resource and land-use frontiers.
• To propose a novel theory explaining the emergence of frontiers in marginal territories.
• To identify key mechanisms driving both the emergence and sustenance of active frontiers for improved sustainability governance.

Main Methods:

• Synthesis of existing theories: land rent, agglomeration economies, frontiers as waves, territorialization, friction, opportunities, anticipation, and expectation.
• Development of a new theory of frontier emergence based on exogenous pushes, past wave legacies, and actor anticipations.
• Analysis of mechanisms sustaining active frontiers: differential rent creation/capture and agglomeration economies.

Main Results:

• A new theory identifies exogenous pushes, past wave legacies, and actor anticipations as key drivers of frontier emergence.
• Differential rent creation and capture, alongside agglomeration economies, are identified as mechanisms sustaining active frontiers.
• The study provides a framework applicable to tropical agriculture and deforestation frontiers, with potential relevance for extractive resource frontiers.

Conclusions:

• Understanding frontier emergence mechanisms is critical for addressing sustainability concerns linked to land-use change.
• The proposed theory offers a more comprehensive view of frontier dynamics, extending beyond active advancement.
• Five implications for the governance of frontiers are discussed to promote sustainable development and resource management.