Land Concentration and Social Progress Decline in Brazilian Amazon Municipalities

Rural populations are directly reliant on ecosystem goods and the land structure within which they are embedded. They are hardship-impacted due to land appropriation and the absence of regulatory mechanisms that ensure sustainable development and socio-environmental conflict prevention. MATOPIBA region encompasses an ecotone area between the Cerrado and Amazon biomes, a significant Brazilian agricultural frontier, and a biodiversity conservation priority area. In this context, we observed an inverse correlation between land concentration and socio-environmental development in ten municipalities in Tocantins State, Brazil. The legal security of land is directly proportional to the Social Progress Index (SPI), which, in turn, is inversely related to land concentration. Therefore, the existence of a multifactorial relationship between SPI, land tenure security, land concentration, and land grabbing should be considered in the development of public policies for land governance and climate change in the Brazilian Amazon region.