Land Use Policy 34 (2013) 27–41 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Land Use Policy jou rn al h om epa g e: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Trans-boundary infrastructure and land cover change: Highway paving and community-level deforestation in a tri-national frontier in the Amazon Stephen G. Perz a,∗ , Youliang Qiu b , Yibin Xia b , Jane Southworth b , Jing Sun b , Matthew Marsik b,c , Karla Rocha b,d , Veronica Passos d , Daniel Rojas e , Gabriel Alarcón f , Grenville Barnes g , Christopher Baraloto h a Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, 3219 Turlington Hall, University of Florida, PO Box 117330, Gainesville, FL 32611-7330, USA b Department of Geography and Land Use Change Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA c Natural Capital Project, The Nature Conservancy, Seattle, WA, USA d Universidade Federal do Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil e Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Cobija, Pando, Bolivia f Universidad Nacional Amazónica de Madre de Dios, Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios, Peru g School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA h Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 29 May 2012 Received in revised form 25 January 2013 Accepted 27 January 2013 Keywords: Globalization Infrastructure Land Amazon Brazil, Peru a b s t r a c t Economic globalization manifests in landscapes through regional integration initiatives involving trans-boundary infrastructure. While the relationships of roads, accessibility and land cover are well- understood, they have rarely been considered across borders in national frontier regions. We therefore pursue an analysis of infrastructure connectivity and land cover change in the tri-national frontier of the southwestern Amazon where Bolivia, Brazil and Peru meet, and where the Inter-Oceanic Highway has recently been paved. We integrate satellite, survey, climate and other data for a sample of rural com- munities that differ in terms of highway paving across the tri-national frontier. We employ a suite of explanatory variables tied to road paving and other factors that vary both across and within the three sides of the frontier in order to model their importance for deforestation. A multivariate analysis of non- forest land cover during 2005–2010 confirms the importance of paving status and travel times, as well as land tenure and other factors. These findings indicate that integration affects land cover, but does not eliminate the effects of other factors that vary across the frontier, which bears implications for the study of globalization, trans-boundary infrastructure, environmental governance and land cover change. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction It is well-established that accessibility to land is closely related to land cover change (Chomitz and Gray, 1996; Nelson et al., 2004). In particular, analyses of deforestation in frontier areas such as the Amazon have shown that new roads, and road paving, are associ- ated with deforestation (Anderson et al., 2002; Pfaff et al., 2007). Related work has similarly confirmed that most forest clearing occurs close to road corridors (Laurance et al., 2001; Southworth et al., 2011). ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 352 294 7186; fax: +1 352 392 6568. E-mail addresses: sperz@ufl.edu (S.G. Perz), yqiu@ufl.edu (Y. Qiu), xiayibin@ufl.edu (Y. Xia), jsouthwo@ufl.edu (J. Southworth), jingsun520@ufl.edu (J. Sun), mmarsik@gmail.com (M. Marsik), rocha@ufl.edu (K. Rocha), veronicapassos@uol.com.br (V. Passos), darcbp@hotmail.com (D. Rojas), galarcona@hotmail.com (G. Alarcón), gbarnes@ufl.edu (G. Barnes), Chris.Baraloto@ecofog.gf (C. Baraloto). In this paper, we expand on these issues by situating the rela- tionship between accessibility and land cover change in the broader context of regional integration across national boundaries. Initia- tives to integrate resource-rich regions into the global economy include trade agreements to facilitate international commerce and new infrastructure to permit the physical transportation of labor, capital and products. Economic research has consistently shown positive effects of infrastructure on economic growth (Calderón and Serven, 2004; Straub, 2008). Infrastructure has therefore become pre-eminent on the development agenda (Bourguignon and Pleskovic, 2008). Trans-boundary infrastructure initiatives have thus taken on considerable significance in the context of glob- alization. In Latin America, the debt crisis of the 1980s led to neoliberal policies such as trade liberalization. Notably, this included trade among neighboring countries in the spirit of “open regionalism” as a means of reinvigorating economic growth (Bulmer-Thomas, 2001). But trade agreements, especially the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), have incurred substantial criticism 0264-8377/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.01.009