In the 1970s 97 percent of Legal Amazonia was undisturbed and another 2 percent were fallow lands in the process of forest regeneration. Only about 1 percent of the area was being used actively for crops and planted pastures (see table 4.1). This has changed, but not as dramatically as many people have been led to believe. By 1995, less than 15 percent of the total area had been transformed from its original natural state.

Land-use in the Amazon is far from static. There are several different possible cycles depending on the remoteness of the plot, the quality of soils, the skills and resources of the farmer, and many other factors. In order to get a very general sense of the land-use transition patterns in Legal Amazonia, we categorize the land-use types into three main uses: crop land, fallow land, and planted pasture, and examine the probability that land allocated to one of these three uses will transition into a different use in the next five-year period. As we do not have data on the specific fate of any particular plot within each municipality, this is accomplished by estimating a land-use transition model.