Roads, petroleum and accessibility: the case of eastern Ecuador

Abstract

Oil exploration and production (E&P) activities in remote regions are often considered a catalyst for landscape change through the direct alterations created by infrastructure features, as well as through the accessibility provided by roads. The construction, expansion and improvement of transportation routes in isolated areas can attract newcomers and resource users who engage in illegal logging, poaching, commercial agriculture, as well as planned and spontaneous colonization. These actions can lead to larger-scale surface disturbances that may also affect indigenous territories and natural preserves. However, do these parallel activities and outcomes always accompany E&P development, or can controlled access minimize changes? To answer this question we utilized an “accounting from above” approach that uses remote sensing and GIS techniques to analyze surface disturbance patterns linked to infrastructure features for both E&P and parallel activities. Our study area included four neighboring oil blocks in eastern Ecuador’s tropical forest, displaying three types of E&P development: public-access, controlled-access and roadless. The first objective was to determine the spatial relationship between infrastructure pattern, disturbance regimes and the type of road access for the year 2000 using land-use land-cover maps, soils data, protected areas and colonization zones. The second objective was to examine the statistical relationships between agricultural conversion and the above factors. Spatial analysis findings suggest that areas of overlap where colonization zones, public-access roads and fertile soils meet are most prone to deforestation. Statistical findings from a linear regression model suggest that the presence of public-access non-oil roads are significant at explaining the conversion of natural vegetation (forest) to agriculture, while the presence of protected areas helps explain the conservation of forested land.