Paper short abstract:

The adoption of export-oriented policies and development corridors led to the inflow of investments and land-use changes in rural Mozambique. The research uses remote sensing imagery to identify impacted areas and correlates visible landscape changes driven by the arrival of international capital.

Paper long abstract:

Starting in the ’90s, Mozambique has been adopting export-oriented policies aimed at attracting international extractivist capital. The process accelerated at the end of the first decade of the year 2000 with the implementation of the Nacala Corridor and Prosavana program, including the concession of mining sites and logistics to private enterprises, together with strategies to facilitate the arrival of agro-industrial companies. Although resistance movements and international conditions have altered some of the planned implementations, significant impacts on the socio-territorial fabric of the region had occured. The consequences of these arrivals are disputed, contrasting peasants’ rights violations, infrastructure implementation, and economic growth. This research uses spatial analysis to assess changes and relationships between human activities and land use modifications, correlating changes in land-use intensity, emission of lights, and abrupt land cover changes in specific hotspots along the Nacala Corridor. Hence, supporting the efforts to understand the impact of massive land deals in urban settlements, possible push-pull factors of capital and labor, and trends led by infrastructure implementation in rural Africa.