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Roads, deforestation, and the mitigating effect of protected areas in the Amazon
... Les hypothèses suivantes ont été émises : ➢ L'ouverture de la route d'exploration minière entraine la régression de la forêt. L'impact serait perceptible jusqu'à 5 km de part et d'autre de la route car, en milieu tropicale, la déforestation se produit à moins de 5,5 km d'une route pavée ou non (Laurance et al., 2002 ;Barber et al., 2014). Cependant, l'influence de la route, sur toute sa trajectoire, varie d'un tronçon à un autre. ...
... Cette approche a permis d'évaluer l'effet de chaque tronçon. La limite de 7 km de part et 32 d'autre de la route est légèrement supérieure à la zone où est observée 95% de la déforestation (5,5 km) dans les régions tropicales (Laurance et al., 2002 ;Bamba et al., 2010 ;Barber et al., 2014). ...
... Des tendances similaires ont été observées au Gabon (PFBC, 2006) et dans l'ex-province orientale. Par ailleurs, en Amazonie brésilienne, 95% de toute la déforestation se produit à moins de 5,5 km d'une route pavée ou non pavée(Laurance et al., 2002 ;Barber et al., 2014).En outre, l'impact de cette route d'exploration minière varie en fonction des tronçons et dans le temps (Figure 20). Les faibles proportions de forêt enregistrées sur les tronçons A, B, C, D, E, F et G s'expliquent par leur proximité avec la RN39 et les villages de Mulomba et Mpwita. ...
Les activités minières et la croissance démographique dans le territoire de Mutshatsha en RD Congo, contribuent à la régression constante de la forêt. A l’aide de la télédétection, du système d’information géographique, de la statistique et des outils de l’écologie du paysage, cette étude a analysé la dynamique paysagère dans le territoire de Mutshastsha entre 1998 et 2023. Les résultats révèlent une perte continue du couvert forestier au profit des savane herbeuse et marécages, de l’agriculture et des bâtis-sols nus. En 2023, les savane herbeuse et marécages sont devenus la nouvelle occupation du sol dominante. Le taux annuel de déforestation sur cette période est estimé à 2,75%, ce qui est nettement supérieur à la moyenne nationale (0,2%). La présence croissante d’activités humaines, en particulier minière, agricoles et de carbonisation, est mise en évidence par l’augmentation du niveau de perturbation du paysage, qui est passé de 1,49 en 1998 à 5,12 en 2023. Les villages et la route d’exploration minière jouent un rôle important dans la dégradation de la forêt, servant de points de départ à la propagation des activités humaines dans la forêt. L’ancienneté et la proximité des villages avec un centre urbain sont déterminantes sur la pression exercée sur la forêt. En outre, l’ouverture d’une route d’exploration minière conduit à la perte continue de la forêt. Toutefois, la perte forestière varie en fonction des tronçons de la route. Elle est élevée sur les tronçons proches de la route national et des villages. Pour atténuer la perte de la forêt dans cette région, caractérisée par une croissance démographique et la prédominance des activités minières, une approche systémique est nécessaire. Cela implique la mise en œuvre d’un zonage strict de l’utilisation des terres et d’un système efficace de gestion des ressources naturelles.
Mots clés : Miombo, Route d’exploration minière, Pressions anthropiques, Dynamique paysagère, SIG/Télédétection.
Mining activities and population growth in the Mutshatsha territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo contribute to the ongoing regression of the forest. Using remote sensing, geographic information systems, statistics, and landscape ecology, this study analyzed landscape dynamics in the Mutshastsha territory between 1998 and 2023. The results reveal a continuous loss of forest cover in favor of grassy savanna and marshes, agriculture, and built-up areas. By 2023, grassy savanna and marshes have become the dominant land use. The annual deforestation rate over this period is estimated at 2.75%, significantly higher than the national average (0,2%). The increasing presence of human activities, particularly mining, agriculture, and carbonization, is evidenced by the rising level of landscape disturbance, increasing from 1.49 in 1998 to 5.12 in 2023. Villages and mining exploration roads play a significant role in forest degradation, serving as starting points for the spread of human activities into the forest. The age and proximity of villages to urban centers influence the pressure on the forest. Furthermore, the opening of mining exploration roads leads to a continual loss of forest. However, forest loss varies depending on the stretches of the road. This loss is high on the stretches near to the national road and the villages. To mitigate forest loss in this region, characterized by rapid population growth and dominance of mining activities, a systemic approach is needed. This entails implementing strict land use zoning and an effective natural resource management system.
Keywords: Miombo, Mining exploration Road, Anthropogenic pressures, Landscape dynamics, GIS/Remote sensing
... Moreover, environmental factors are also linked to forest cover change (Fagua et al., 2019;Geist & Lambin, 2002). The environmental variables commonly included in the models relate to land accessibility (both natural -rivers-and anthropic -roads-; Aguirre et al., 2021;Barber et al., 2014;Laurance et al., 2001), topography (elevation and slope gradients, Armenteras et al., 2011;Bax et al., 2016) and climate variability (Bax & Francesconi, 2018). Furthermore, climate variables determine conditions for human establishment and development of activities that conduce deforestation (Armenteras et al., 2011;Bax & Francesconi, 2018). ...
... We selected explanatory variables that are usually used in tropical deforestation analysis (Armenteras et al., 2013;Barber et al., 2014;Bax & Francesconi, 2018;Geist & Lambin, 2002) and that were available for the whole country. We excluded from the analyses those variables that were distributed in a few districts or in districts of a specific region or whose data was insufficient such as: illegal coca crop, legal and no legal mining and hydrocarbons ( Supplementary Fig. 4). ...
... These drivers include biophysical factors such as temperature, precipitation, and slope, as well as land use practices like agriculture and fire. Accessibility via transport networks and demographic factors such as rural population density were also found to be drivers of deforestation (Table 3; Armenteras et al., 2017;Barber et al., 2014;Curtis et al., 2018;Hänggli et al., 2023;Jayathilake et al., 2021). Surprisingly, our analysis did not reveal any direct or indirect effects of socioeconomic variables, such as UBN and IDH, at the national scale (Fig. 3a). ...
High deforestation rates in tropical forests of South America lead to biodiversity loss, climate change and alterations in nature’s contributions to people. Deforestation drivers vary across scales due to the heterogeneity of environmental and socioeconomic conditions and forest types. Here, we test the effects of deforestation drivers on deforestation rate from 2000 to 2020 at national and regional scales using Peru as a study case. To do that, we selected nine deforestation drivers commonly used in tropical deforestation analyses. We used the forest cover loss dataset of Global Forest Change to calculate deforestation rates. We conducted five path analyses, one for the national scale and the others for the four regions, using the district as a spatial unit. The national path model explained 34% of the total observed variance and showed that temperature, agriculture, transport network, precipitation, rural population and fire had a positive effect on deforestation, while the slope had a negative effect. The regional path models (63% of the total observed variance in the Coast region, 32% in the Andean, 60% in the High Rainforest and 75% in the Low Rainforest) showed that many national drivers remained at the regional scale. However, we found that the strength, relation (positive/negative) and type (direct/indirect) may vary. Therefore, identifying regional differences in deforestation dynamics is crucial for forest conservation planning and for addressing effective policies in tropical countries. However, improving the quality and availability of national data is essential for further advancing our understanding of this complex process.
... Furthermore, our mining variable is derived from reliable mining permits data provided by the GGMC (Guyana Geology and Mines Commission). Access for small-scale miners is typically facilitated through existing roadways or the construction of new ones, as well as along waterways, and the rate of forest loss is often influenced by the proximity to these features (Barber et al., 2014;Newman et al., 2014;Southworth et al., 2011). Furthermore, the size of waterways play a crucial role as predictor of deforestation, enabling human activities such as transportation and human settlement along larger rivers, as well as alluvial gold mining along the smaller streams (Dezécache et al., 2017). ...
... Proximity to roads did not demonstrate a strong influence on probability of deforestation, contrary to its documented significance in the literature (Barber et al., 2014;Bax et al., 2016;Etter et al., 2006). This is noteworthy because roads have been recognised as facilitators of human settlement, logging and mining throughout the Amazon (Laurance, 2015). ...
... However, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting the existence of an undocumented network of unofficial access roads and tracks for logging and mining operations in certain parts of the country, which were not accounted for in our model (Pierre et al., 2020). Furthermore, although waterways are likely to serve as main access routes for miners and transportation routes for timber, similar to roads, our analysis indicate that the proximity to waterways (both large and small) had little influence on deforestation probability at the national level, where our analyses were conducted (Barber et al., 2014;Bos et al., 2020). It is worth noting that the projected forest loss is concentrated in the northern and western regions of the country, which are intersected by a network of large and small rivers. ...
... While studies of Brazil's transportation infrastructure's impacts on environmental and land use have tended to focus on the Amazon biome (Viana et al., 2008;Barber et al., 2014;Santos et al., 2020), its agricultural impacts are particularly important in the Cerrado biome, due to this region's increasing importance in national and global crop production (Bicudo Da Silva et al., 2020;Souza et al., 2020;Valdes, 2022). The center-west region (a geographic proxy of the Cerrado biome 1 ), accounts for the majority of the Cerrado's agricultural output. ...
... In addition, most existing studies focus on the particular region where infrastructure construction takes place (Pedlowski et al., 1997;Weinhold and Reis, 2008;Barber et al., 2014;das Neves et al., 2021), but the impacts of transportation infrastructure investments are not locally restricted. When infrastructure improves connectivity in one region, it increases the comparative advantages of farming, relative to other regions. ...
... Consequently, riparian forests receive special protection in the Costa Rican Forestry and Water Laws. However, deforestation rates have been found to be higher near rivers in other regions [85]. We found that riparian zones on the Osa Peninsula had less forest cover than the region on average, even where rivers passed through PAs, due to high riparian deforestation prior to the study period. ...
... In many regions, most deforestation is found near roads, with almost 95% of Amazonian deforestation occurring within 5.5 km of roads or 1 km of rivers [85]. Forest gaps due to roads can lead to landscape fragmentation and edge effects [86]. ...
While protected areas (PAs) are an important conservation strategy to protect vulnerable ecosystems and species, recent analyses question their effectiveness in curbing deforestation and maintaining landscape connectivity. The spatial arrangement of forests inside and outside of PAs may affect ecosystem functioning and wildlife movement. The Osa Peninsula—and Costa Rica in general—are unique conservation case studies due to their high biodiversity, extensive PA network, environmental policies, and payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs. This study explores the relationship between forest management initiatives—specifically PAs, the 1996 Forest Law, and PES—and forest cover and landscape metrics in the Osa Conservation Area (ACOSA). The Google Earth Engine API was used to process Surface Reflectance Tier 1 Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager data for 1987, 1998, and 2019, years with relatively cloud-free satellite imagery. Land use/land cover (LULC) maps were generated with the pixel-based random forest machine learning algorithm, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and functional landscape metrics were calculated. The LULC maps are the first to track land use change, from 1987 to 2019 and the first to separately classify mature and secondary forest in the region, and have already proven useful for conservation efforts. The results suggest that forest cover, NDVI, EVI, and structural connectivity increased from 1987 to 2019 across the study area, both within and surrounding the PAs, suggesting minimal deforestation encroachment and local leakage. These changes may have contributed to the increasing vertebrate abundance observed in the region. PAs, especially national parks with stricter conservation regulations, displayed the highest forest cover and connectivity. Forest cover increased in properties receiving PES payments. Following the Forest Law’s 1996 deforestation ban, both forest conversion and reforestation rates decreased, suggesting the law curbed deforestation but did not drive reforestation across the region. Connectivity outside of PAs slightly declined following the adoption of the law, so the subsequent forest growth likely occurred in mostly previously unforested areas. Forest expansion alone does not ensure connectivity. We highlight the importance of developing policies, PES programs, and monitoring systems that emphasize conserving and restoring large, connected forest patches for biodiversity conservation and landscape resilience. Resumen: Aunque las áreas protegidas (APs) son una importante estrategia de conservación para proteger ecosistemas y especies vulnerables, algunos análisis recientes cuestionan su eficacia para frenar la deforestación y mantener la conectividad del paisaje. La distribución espacial de los bosques dentro y fuera de las AP puede afectar el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas y los movimientos de la fauna. La Península de Osa–y Costa Rica en general–constituyen casos de estudio únicos de conservación debido a su elevada biodiversidad, su extensa red de AP, sus políticas medioambientales y sus programas de Pago por Servicios Ambientales (PSA). Este estudio explora la relación entre APs, la Ley Forestal de 1996, PSA, cobertura y métricas del paisaje en el Área de Conservación Osa (ACOSA). Se utilizó la plataforma Google Earth Engine API para procesar datos de Reflectancia Superficial Tier 1 Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper y Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager para 1987, 1998 y 2019, años con imágenes satelitales relativamente libres de nubes. Se generaron mapas de uso del suelo con el algoritmo de aprendizaje automático basado en pixeles Random Forest, y se calcularon el índice de vegetación de diferencia normalizada (NDVI), el índice de vegetación mejorado (EVI) y las métricas de paisaje funcionales. Estos mapas, los primeros en clasificar por separado los bosques maduros y secundarios de la región, han demostrado su utilidad para los esfuerzos de conservación. Los resultados sugieren que la cobertura forestal, el NDVI, el EVI y la conectividad estructural aumentaron entre 1987 y 2019 en toda la región de estudio, tanto dentro de las AP como en sus alrededores, lo que sugiere una expansión mínima de la deforestación dentro y fuera de las AP. Estos cambios pueden haber contribuido al aumento de la abundancia de vertebrados observado en la región. Las AP, especialmente los parques nacionales con regulaciones de conservación más estrictas, mostraron la mayor cobertura forestal y conectividad. La cobertura forestal aumentó en aquellas propiedades que recibieron PSA. Tras la prohibición de la deforestación por la Ley Forestal de 1996, disminuyeron tanto las tasas de conversión forestal como las de reforestación, lo que sugiere que la ley frenó la deforestación, pero no impulsó la reforestación. La conectividad fuera de las AP disminuyó ligeramente tras la entrada en vigor de la ley, lo que sugiere que el crecimiento forestal posterior se produjo en zonas que antes no estaban forestadas. Por lo tanto, la expansión forestal por sí sola no garantiza la conectividad. Resaltamos la importancia de desarrollar políticas, programas PSA y sistemas de monitoreo que hagan hincapié en la conservación y restauración de grandes zonas forestales conectadas para apuntalar la conservación de la biodiversidad y la resiliencia del paisaje.
... Analyzing the spatial distribution of the data in the Brazilian legal Amazon region, one can observe that between 2000 and 2010, Pará, Mato Grosso, and Rondônia presented the highest incidence of active fire. Among the phenomena that explain this process, we mention the advance of agricultural borders and the use of fire for the management of already cultivated areas as a strategy for soil preparation and containment of invasive exotic species, which leads to the ignition of accidental fires (Barber et al. 2014;Fonseca et al. 2019;Teckentrup et al. 2019). ...
... This result could support the hypothesis that the precipitation is inversely proportional to the registered number of active fires. While favoring regional economic development, the building of highways that connect Belém (PA) to Brasília (Brazil's capital) and Cuiabá (MT) to Porto Velho (RO) is also responsible for deforestation that boosted the occupation of forested areas in the region (Barber et al. 2014). ...
Anthropic fires are hugely responsible for the deforestation of the Brazilian legal Amazon region, one of the world’s most important ecosystems. In this way, policies must be implemented to reduce such a phenomenon. Preventive policies must be manifold, but historical time series analysis and active fire behavior predictions might subside part of the actions. Following this track, the present study aims to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of active fire, using historical data of active fire comprising all states in the Brazilian legal Amazon region from January 2000 to December 2022. We used information from the National Institute for Space Research to fit appropriate statistical models for counting time series and forecast the monthly behavior of active fire until May 2023. The results showed that approximately 73% of active fires were registered in Pará, Mato Grosso, and Rondônia states, mainly between 2000 and 2010. In Pará, the forecast obtained reflects the phenomenon’s seasonality, with a higher concentration between August and November. In summary, the adopted methodology provided results that facilitated an understanding of the dynamics of active fire in the Brazilian legal Amazon region and can be considered a relevant tool to help authorities formulate public policies for arson prevention.
... Efforts to plan or zone road development have historically been most inadequate in remote rural areas, wilderness frontiers, and partially intervened natural areas (hereafter semi-forested areas) where road development is most haphazard and environmentally destructive [7][8][9]. Many roads in such regions, both legal and illegal, are unmapped [10,11]. Hence, road-mapping studies in the Brazilian Amazon [10,[12][13][14][15], Asia-Pacific [11,16,17], and elsewhere [18,19] regularly find 2-13 times more road length than reported in government sources or online road databases. ...
... Many roads in such regions, both legal and illegal, are unmapped [10,11]. Hence, road-mapping studies in the Brazilian Amazon [10,[12][13][14][15], Asia-Pacific [11,16,17], and elsewhere [18,19] regularly find 2-13 times more road length than reported in government sources or online road databases. The abundance of such clandestine roadways underscores the degree to which environmental governance and conservation advocacy are challenged by the lack of complete, up-to-date information on road development [20]. ...
Road building has long been under-mapped globally, arguably more than any other human activity threatening environmental integrity. Millions of kilometers of unmapped roads have challenged environmental governance and conservation in remote frontiers. Prior attempts to map roads at large scales have proven inefficient, incomplete, and unamenable to continuous road monitoring. Recent developments in automated road detection using artificial intelligence have been promising but have neglected the relatively irregular, sparse, rustic roadways characteristic of remote semi-natural areas. In response, we tested the accuracy of automated approaches to large-scale road mapping across remote rural and semi-forested areas of equatorial Asia-Pacific. Three machine learning models based on convolutional neural networks (UNet and two ResNet variants) were trained on road data derived from visual interpretations of freely available high-resolution satellite imagery. The models mapped roads with appreciable accuracies, with F1 scores of 72–81% and intersection over union scores of 43–58%. These results, as well as the purposeful simplicity and availability of our input data, support the possibility of concerted program of exhaustive, automated road mapping and monitoring across large, remote, tropical areas threatened by human encroachment.
... Os custos socioambientais dessa infraestrutura são muito altos 8 . Por exemplo, as estradas facilitam o desmatamento, de forma que mais de 90% do desmatamento ocorre em um raio de 5,5 km das estradas existentes 1,9 ; além disso, a construção de barragens gerou, em muitos casos, ilegalidade e desigualdade nas cidades próximas devido aos trabalhadores migrantes, e violações aos direitos dos povos Indígenas e das comunidades locais (IPLCs, da sigla em inglês) 1,10,11 . Além disso, alguns aspectos como os benefícios não econômicos proporcionados pela inovação e pelo conhecimento de povos Indígenas e comunidades locais, a biodiversidade e outros aspectos trazidos por florestas em pé e rios fluindo devem ser mais atentamente analisados, pois são potencialmente impactados pela infraestrutura 12 . ...
... As estradas da Amazônia estão profundamente ligadas ao desmatamento 8,9 ; portanto, dar prioridade a meios de transporte alternativos poderia proporcionar a conectividade desejada com menos impactos ambientais. As estradas, sejam elas legais ou ilegais, facilitam o acesso de especuladores de terras e o uso de máquinas para mineração e extração (ilegal) de madeira, resultando até mesmo em invasões de áreas protegidas e territórios dos IPLCs, muitas vezes terminando em disputas de terras e conflitos sociais 8,31 . ...
O estado atual da infraestrutura na Amazônia prioriza os interesses nacionais de desenvolvimento, particularmente nas indústrias extrativas e nas políticas industriais domésticas, às custas das populações locais e das preocupações ambientais. Isso levou a processos de desenvolvimento insustentáveis e de baixa qualidade, principalmente ao desmatamento causado pela infraestrutura de transporte existente. As mensagens-chave propõem uma mudança no paradigma da infraestrutura, enfatizando uma configuração espacial que incorpora soluções baseadas na natureza e conhecimento indígena e local. Os autores enfatizam a necessidade de uma forte regulamentação e fiscalização ao investir em transporte para evitar maiores danos ambientais, defendendo uma abordagem de rede que considere o transporte aquático e aéreo para minimizar o impacto. Apesar de exportar energia de grandes instalações hidrelétricas, a Amazônia enfrenta déficits no fornecimento de energia, especialmente em áreas isoladas. Os autores defendem contra novas grandes barragens hidrelétricas e sugerem turbinas hidrocinéticas de pequena escala para fornecimento remoto de energia. Promover energia renovável acessível, confiável e de pequena escala também é essencial para o desenvolvimento sustentável. O acesso à água potável e ao saneamento é limitado na Amazônia, apesar de seus abundantes recursos hídricos. Os autores pedem abordagens integradas, incorporando novos métodos e tecnologias para garantir água potável e saneamento e conceitos de economia circular para o gerenciamento de resíduos sólidos. A conectividade digital é considerada crucial para o desenvolvimento social e econômico, enfatizando a importância do setor de comunicações na redução das barreiras ao acesso à educação e à saúde. O desenvolvimento de processos, produtos e mercados inovadores é destacado como um resultado positivo da melhoria da conectividade digital na região.
... Road extraction (or mapping) aims at detecting and segmenting roads, usually by means of remote sensing images, mainly due to their wide coverage. As can be seen in Figure 1, such a task (and its developments and outcomes) can be directly linked to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest [1] which, in turn, is related to several environmental problems, such as biodiversity reduction and climate change. An important issue is that this type of road (presented in Figure 1) is usually opened illegally, without the knowledge or authorization of the responsible bodies. ...
... The second image (AM6) has some roads and a lot of degradation on the east half, but on the other side (west) just a few rivers. It is worth remembering that flooded areas and narrow rivers are easily confused with stretches of rural roads [1], [4]. In this case, the pixel-wise approach detected several segments of rivers and sandbanks as rural roads (false positive). ...
Amazon rainforest deforestation severely impacts the environment in many ways, including biodiversity reduction, climate change, and so on. A key indicator of deforestation is the sudden appearance of rural/unofficial roads, usually exploited to transport raw materials extracted from the forest. To early detect such roads and prevent deforestation, remote sensing images have been widely employed. Precisely, some researchers have focused on tackling this task by using low-resolution imagery, mainly due to their public availability and long time series. However, performing road extracting using low-resolution images poses several challenges, most of which are not addressed by existing works, including high inter-class similarity, complex structure, etc. Motivated by this, in this paper, we propose a novel approach to perform road extraction on low-resolution satellite images based on contextual and pixel-level decision fusion. We conducted a systematic evaluation of the proposed method using a new dataset proposed in this work. The experiments show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of intersection over union and F1-score.
... Except for the grassland-silviculture transition, the most important driver variable was the linear distance to grasslands in all other conversions. Although previous studies have proven the influence of the proximity of roads and rivers on the conversion of native environments to anthropized ones, here these factors seem to have a secondary effect on the conversion processes, acting only in the grassland-forest conversions and corroborating the results reached by Barber et al. (2014), which proved that deforestation rates are much higher near transportation networks, such as roads and rivers, in the Brazilian Amazon region (Barber et al., 2014). ...
... Except for the grassland-silviculture transition, the most important driver variable was the linear distance to grasslands in all other conversions. Although previous studies have proven the influence of the proximity of roads and rivers on the conversion of native environments to anthropized ones, here these factors seem to have a secondary effect on the conversion processes, acting only in the grassland-forest conversions and corroborating the results reached by Barber et al. (2014), which proved that deforestation rates are much higher near transportation networks, such as roads and rivers, in the Brazilian Amazon region (Barber et al., 2014). ...
Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) have significant implications for biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and deforestation. Modeling LULC changes is crucial for understanding anthropogenic impacts on environmental conservation and ecosystem services. While previous studies have focused on predicting future changes, there is a growing need to determine past scenarios using new assessment tools. This study aims to propose a methodology for LULC past scenario generation based on transition analysis. Aiming to hindcast LULC scenario in 1970 based on the transition analysis of the last 35 years (from 1985 to 2020), two machine learning algorithms, Multi‐Layer Perceptron (MLP) and Similarity Weighted, were employed to determine the driver variables most related to conversions in LULC and to simulate the past. The study focused on the Aristida spp. grasslands in the Uruguayan savannas, where native grasslands have been extensively converted to agricultural areas. LULC data from the MapBiomas project were integrated with spatial variables such as altimetry, slope, pedology, and linear distances from rivers, roads, urban areas, agriculture, forest, forestry, and native grasslands. The accuracy of the predicted maps was assessed through stratified random sampling on reference images from the Multi‐Spectral Scanner (MSS) sensor. The results demonstrate a reduction of approximately 659,934 hectares of native grasslands in the study area between 1985 and 2020, directly proportional to the increase in cultivable areas. The MLP algorithm exhibited moderate performance, with notable errors in classifying agriculture and grassland areas. In contrast, the SimWeight algorithm displayed better accuracy, particularly in distinguishing grassland and agriculture classes. The modeled map using SimWeight accurately represented the transitions between grassland and agriculture with a high level of agreement. By modeling the 1970s scenario using the SimWeight model, it was estimated that the Aristida spp. grasslands experienced a substantial reduction in grassland coverage, ranging from 9,982.31 to 10,022.32 km² between 1970 and 2020. This represents a range of 60,8 to 61,07% of the total grassland area in 1970. These findings provide valuable insights into the driving factors behind land use change in the Aristida spp. Grasslands and offer useful information for land management, conservation, and sustainable development in the region. The study's main contribution lies in the hindcasting of past LULC scenarios, utilizing a tool primarily used for forecasting future scenarios.
... For example, PA establishment has been shown to curtail forest loss within the PA boundary, but that forest loss may be displaced to the buffer zones outside the PA (Barber et al., 2014;Ford et al., 2020). The level of protection designated to a PA may influence environmental quality within the PA and the interactions of the PA outside its boundary. ...
... For instance, the English Lake District in the UK is classified as a cultural WHS, but it contains a significant portion of land and lakes managed for conservation (UNESCO, 2017). Indicators used in the general literature to assess the impact of PAs include human appropriated net primary production (HANPP, Vačkář et al., 2016) and forest loss (Allan et al., 2017;Leberger et al., 2020;Barber et al., 2014;Ford et al., 2020). To differentiate from these studies, we used global land use and land cover (LULC, ESA GlobCover, 2009), human footprint (HF, Wildlife Conservation Society-WCS, and Center for International Earth Science Information Network-CIESIN-Columbia University, 2005) and forest landscape integrity index (FLII, Grantham et al., 2020) as indicators of human and environmental change associated with the classification of a WHS. ...
Protected areas (PA) are one of the primary tools for conserving and protecting biodiversity, but their goals have evolved overtime beyond nature conservation to include supporting human communities within and adjacent to the PA. UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) offer a unique perspective on the success of PAs as they fall under three categories, cultural, natural, and mixed heritage sites. The nature of these categories encapsulates the inclusion of human communities in the goals of the WHS. To understand the impact and relationship the WHS has with its surrounding landscape, we assessed changes in three indicators, land use and land cover (LULC), human footprint (HF), and forest landscape integrity index (FLII), across three spatial scales, 1, 10, 100 km from the WHS boundary. We found that there is a conservation spillover effect at least within 1 km of the WHS boundary. In this buffer zone, HF was low and FLII was high. FLII was lower and HF was higher at larger spatial scales. The relationship between the WHS and its surrounding landscape is one reason to support the WHS network, however, management of PAs should be more explicit about this relationship as well as relationships between individual PAs.
... High levels of deforestation have been rather observed in proximity to major roads. Evidence indicates that major roads and transportation networks open up areas of forest to settlement and resource extraction, with severe impacts in terms of tree loss (Barber et al., 2014). In tropical regions, rapid global road development is currently underway, and additional road development is planned, driven by national development priorities and foreign investments, promoting logging and extractive industries (Kleinschroth et al., 2019). ...
... Furthermore, our results indicate that deforestation increases with proximity to major roads. This is in line with literature (see, for example, Barber et al. (2014), Kleinschroth et al. (2019)) and suggests that the development of major roads and network transportation, by opening up areas of forest to settlement and resource extraction, are generally detrimental for the conservation of the forests. Notes: The table reports the estimated coefficients obtained using a OLS with parish level fixed effects and year dummies. ...
Agricultural expansion-led deforestation in Uganda is one of the highest of the world. At the same time, internal migration patterns are strongly inter-linked with agricultural dynamics in the country, as migrants are involved in crop production activities and traditionally play important roles in major crop value chains. Migration for agricultural purposes may complicate the already difficult trade-off between agricultural development and forest preservation. This article investigates how internal migration and commercial agriculture shape deforestation patterns across Uganda. Our analysis suggests that the number of cash crop producers and the number of inter-district migrants engaged in agriculture in the recipient parishes are linked to a significant increase in deforestation. We identify cash crop production as a major channel through which migrants affect deforestation. Taken together, these findings call for an improved coordination between policies on forest, agricultural development and land use. In particular, ad-hoc policies of integration are critical to support migrants in recipient areas and avoid additional pressures on natural resources
... There is also likely a synergic effect of both threats. For example, roads lead to direct impacts such as roadkills (Garriga et al., 2012), but can also lead to deforestation (Barber et al., 2014), access by hunters, and dispersal of invasive alien species. Here, we found staff size to be important, at least within PAs under state-level administration, which suggests that inputs tend to be limited to dealing with a large list of threats and pressures and cannot be overlooked. ...
We assessed protected area management effectiveness and identified attributes that limit the effectiveness of 21 protected areas in the State of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. Of these, we assessed 10 areas under state-level administration for which a standardised assessment had not previously been conducted. For the 11 protected areas under federal administration, we obtained assessment data from the government. The protected areas were contrasted regarding the administration level and a list of attributes that could result in differences in management effectiveness between areas. We examined the relationship between protected areas' attributes and mean effectiveness using linear models. The same attributes were also related to management elements, namely context, planning, inputs, processes and outputs, using redundancy analysis. Management effectiveness and scores of management elements were found to be lower for areas either with unresolved land tenure, lacking management plans or updated ones, those under many pressures and threats, or those under state-level administration. Overall, we suggest that federal protected areas do better in at least these attributes or a combination of attributes not well-captured by single indicators than state-level protected areas. Reassessments should be regularly carried out across administration levels in order to effectively flag a barrier, clear it, and identify the next one to be tackled.
... It has also been shown that species richness increases with elevation and distance from the edge of the protected area, and that species assemblage categories differ by distance, supporting the differences in the impact of roads on conservation effectiveness (Ji et al., 2022). That deforestation declined as the distance from the road increased (Barber et al., 2014;Milien et al., 2021) illustrates that the relative change in PAs' forest areas would be higher when the distance to the nearest road was longer than 40 km. At the management level, nature reserves are commonly assumed to be lands with higher levels of protection and management compared to natural park. ...
Establishing protected areas (PAs) is a major measure of biodiversity conservation, and various methods have been explored to assess PAs’ effectiveness. However, those methods mainly compared the relative changes in land cover between treated samples inside the PAs and their matched samples outside the PAs, which would produce misjudgments, especially in some climax communities with a relatively steady state. Thus, in this study, we constructed an integrated framework through a series of assessments according to the state, trend, and relative change of each PA to explore the conservation effectiveness of PAs in the Three Parallel Rivers Region in China from 2000 to 2020. Here, “state” refers to the difference among samples from within and outside the PA, assessed through yearly sample mean comparison. “Trend” means linear regression of mean forest area of each PA throughout the assessment period. “Relative change” means the difference in the mean value of the slope of forest changes between the treated samples inside each PA and their matched control samples outside of PAs. The entire forest area within all PAs in the Three Parallel Rivers Region showed a significant increasing trend from 2000 to 2020 (R² = 0.919, P<0.05). Among all the PAs, twelve (86%) had a positive effect on protecting the forest ecosystem, and two had a nonsignificant effect. Among the factors affecting the state and relative change in PAs’ forests, the annual total precipitation was the most important, followed by distance to the nearest road. Moreover, the management-level variable was an essential factor in the state of PAs’ forest ecosystems, which indicated that national PAs (nature reserves and natural parks) were in a better state than local (provincial- and county-level) nature reserves. Overall, the conservation effectiveness of forests in PAs was assessed at a regional scale in the Three Parallel Rivers Region, implying that our framework would be additional useful in regions with high biodiversity and steady ecosystems. This framework better avoids underestimating conservation effectiveness assessment tasks than traditional methods do. Thus, we posit that this framework is suitable for future global or country-level assessments.
... Land tenure and governance factors also play a role in shaping land use decisions (MacUra et al., 2015). In addition, accessibility to cities through road networks affects deforestation and degradation rates (Barber et al., 2014), as transportation costs can limit commercial agricultural activities (Dang et al., 2019), reducing disturbances to forests via selective logging or fire. The establishment of protected areas (PAs) helps mitigate land-use spillovers, but deforestation continues to occur in areas without protection (Delacote et al., 2016), highlighting the complex nature of deforestation control and the need for comprehensive strategies that address these diverse factors. ...
Natural rubber cultivation is one of the main drivers of tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss. This study examines regulatory and socio‐economic conditions that increase the susceptibility of rubber plantations to deforestation and degradation, aiming to support zero‐deforestation pledges and sustainability commitments made by the natural rubber industry. By combining bottom‐up socio‐economic survey data from rubber smallholder farmers in Indonesia with top‐down spatial datasets on forest loss and degradation, this study identifies factors associated with deforestation, tree cover loss, and degradation of high‐risk plantations. In Jambi Province, Indonesia, from 1991 to 2018, the overall tree cover loss in areas adjacent to rubber plantations was positively correlated to plantation size, remoteness (travel time to cities), and distance to the nearest protected areas, indicating that larger, remotely located plantations likely expanded more into forests between 2000 and 2018. Similarly, tropical forest degradation was positively associated with plantation size, travel time to cities, and distance to protected areas. A higher rubber price in the preceding year correlated with increased annual deforestation and forest degradation, whereas lower prices had the opposite effect. These results suggest that monitoring price changes and identifying plantations that are near non‐protected forest frontiers could enable early detection and potential mitigation of deforestation threats.
... This problem is even worse with more developed roads (i.e., 4-lane paved roads are more developed than single-lane paved roads, which are more developed than dirt roads), which increase the risk to PAs and reduce the efficiency of PAs closer to roads in maintaining biodiversity (Lupinetti-Cunha et al. 2022). Thus, the expansion of the road network puts these areas at risk, as it tends to favor deforestation and habitat loss (Aguirre et al. 2021), mainly by making the regions more accessible, which drives deforestation (Barber et al. 2014). Furthermore, construction of roads leads to an increase in the number of collisions between vehicles and wild animals (Oddone- Aquino and Nkomo 2021). ...
Roads are responsible for great biodiversity loss, especially in protected areas (PAs). Thus, considering the great risk of roads to PAs and the lack of knowledge about these areas, we aimed to analyze the scientific production on wildlife roadkill in Brazil and compare the studies that surveyed roads with and without PAs. We searched for papers in five databases: SciELO, Google Scholar, Reet Brasil, Scopus and Plataforma Lattes. Studies considered to be near PAs (PPA) collected data within a radius of 1km of PAs and the other studies were considered to have no PA (NPA). We found 126 studies that surveyed wildlife roadkill in Brazil, of which 57% are PPA. Publications on wildlife roadkill have increased in recent years, with a greater number of PPA studies than NPA studies (W = 618, p = 0.5992). Mammals are the most-studied group (n = 108), followed by reptiles (n = 79), birds (n = 73) and amphibians (n = 58). Most of the studies took place in the Cerrado (54) and the Atlantic Forest (45), where are the greatest number of surveyed PAs, greatest number of PAs and greatest number of PAs without studies. Only 18 papers suggest specific mitigation measures for the study site. The increase in PPA studies is positive, but researchers need to increase contact with PA managers to produce scientific knowledge and develop more efficient mitigation measures for these areas. We encourage increased surveying of roads near PAs, involvement of researchers with environmental agencies, and more studies with small animals.
... To support a new standing forest-flowing rivers bioeconomy a completely new model of infrastructure consistent with a greener footprint sustainable development (McKenney et al., 2016;IDB and IDB Invest, 2018) must be constructed that is radically distinct from the gargantuan infrastructure projects that dominated the Amazon scene for 5 decades, namely, tens of thousands of roads crisscrossing large tracts of forest, large dams for hydropower and transmission lines, and large mining operations, closely associated with the high ipea boletim regional, urbano e ambiental | 22 | jan.-jun. 2020 rates of land use change and forest clearing (Finer et al., 2008;RAISG, 2012;Ahmed et al., 2013;Barber et al., 2014;Lees et al., 2016;Barros et al., 2020). Concurrently with the decline in deforestation rates in the Amazon from 2005 to about 2014 -especially in the Brazilian Amazon -the impetus for large infrastructure projects diminished for some years. ...
Este artigo versa sobre o desenvolvimento sustentável da Amazônia por meio de transformações disruptivas.
... This approach is conceptually simple, can generate good matching covariate balance and, most importantly, is transparent whilst allowing the researcher to apply knowledge of the subject domain [47] . Table 1 lists the covariates and the corresponding cutpoints used in this analysis, demonstrated to be important predictors of deforestation risk [48,49] . ...
Cambodia is facing widespread deforestation due to agriculture, logging, land grabbing, and infrastructure. The implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects has become a key strategy to protect at-risk forests using the sale of verified emission reductions as financing; generated by reducing forest loss against counterfactual baseline scenarios. We test a series of ex-post baseline assessment methodologies on three Cambodian REDD+ projects using two geospatial datasets (one global and one locally calibrated for maximum accuracy); integrating results to assess the reasonable accuracy of their respective baselines. We find different datasets applied to different control sites produce a wide range of forest loss rates. The baselines of all three projects fall within or below a “zone of reasonable accuracy,” based on an integration of ex-post forest loss rate results, establishing the concept of reasonable accuracy as a valid standard against which to assess REDD+ project baselines.
... This procedure was used for the 15 rural properties evaluated in this study. The system is based on the premise that natural vegetation follows a predictable pattern of changes in greenness from one date to the next, caused by site-specific soil and climatic conditions over the same period [15]. ...
Amburana acreana (Ducke) A. C. Sm., popularly known as "cerejeira" or emburana, is a tree belonging to the Fabaceae family (Leguminosae: Faboideae) and is included in the list of threatened and endangered species, according to Regulation No. 06 of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, dated 23 September 2008, standing out as one of the most vulnerable species. The objective of this study was to analyse the biogeographic distribution of A. acreana in the municipality of Cacoal, located in the Brazilian Amazon. The research was based on field data, complemented by herbarium records, databases, sampling and surveys of the local community to obtain information on the location and abundance of the species. The use of advanced tools such as DIVA-GIS 7.5® and Terra-i® made it possible to visualise the distribution of A. acreana in Brazil, both in its natural habitat (States of Acre, Mato Grosso and Rondônia) and in cultivated areas (Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro), extending also to Bolivia and Peru. In the municipality of Cacoal, the presence of the species was confirmed in ten localities, two of which hosted more than six adult individuals. The consideration of the microclimatic conditions of these localities proves to be a crucial element for proposing effective conservation strategies. The study not only provides a detailed overview of the distribution of A. acreana, but also highlights the need to address specific environmental conditions to ensure the long-term conservation of this threatened species in the Amazon region.
... The spreading of those species leads to the forest fragmentation in the mangrove tree community [14]. The fragmented mangrove gives the easy access to facilitate the deforestation activities and threatens the diversity of ecosystem including birds and fish [15][16] [17]. Further, the fragmentation in mangrove influences the ecosystem's ability to capture and store carbon [18] [19]. ...
The Segara Anakan Lagoon (SAL) is a prominent estuarine mangrove ecosystem located in Java, which is recognised as the most densely populated island in Indonesia. SAL is a degraded mangrove forest due to the encroachment of mangrove edge ecotone species such as Nypa frutican (NF), as well as the proliferation of understory communities including Derris trifoliata and Acanthus spp. within the interior of the forest. Nevertheless, there has been a scarcity of research conducted on this particular phenomenon. The present study employed a land-use/cover change model to examine the following inquiries pertaining to the expansion of these communities: 1) What factors contributed to the expansion of the community?, and 2) What are the projected patterns of future community expansion? Various statistical models were employed to conduct a causal analysis in order to assess the factors influencing driving factors. The multi-temporal mangrove maps from the previous study were used as input data for the model. Explanatory variables used in the model included environmental data, such as multi-temporal maps depicting the coastline of the lagoon, distances to the shoreline and river mouth, as well as the lagoon outlet. Additionally, multi-temporal maps representing ground elevation were also incorporated. The Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small Regional Extent (CLUE-S) dynamic model was employed to forecast the extent of land spreading. The dynamic model was executed utilising the provided statistical model as the input. The land-use/cover change (LULCC) library package was employed to execute all procedures in R. The results indicated that alterations in ground elevation and shoreline played a significant role in influencing the spread of NF and understory, as well as the displacement of mangrove tree, articularly in the western region of the study area. According to the prediction model, it was forecasted that the invasion would persist unless the influencing factors including sedimentation and salinity state were effectively controlled.
... There is consensus that the creation and maintenance of large protected areas around regions directly affected by new infrastructure developments can both mitigate the degeneration of the habitat quality and help maintain the integrity of resident biodiversity (Barber et al. 2014). Additionally, allowing secondary growth and vines to proliferate along road margins can provide a physical buffer that reduces the negative impacts of forest edge effects (Laurance et al. 2009). ...
Large-scale land-use changes have rapidly emerged as drivers of degradation of the Amazonian mammal biota. Land-use changes resulting from infrastructure development (e.g., establishment of hydroelectric dams, highways, and roads) are reaching even formerly remote areas of the Brazilian Amazon. In this chapter, we provide a general overview of the impacts of large-scale land-use changes on Amazonian mammals using a comprehensive literature review. We show that large infrastructure developments are associated with other anthropogenic disturbances that can aggravate the effects of deforestation and fragmentation. We conclude with some general recommendations of how large-scale land-use changes can be managed, through the creation of large protected areas and encouragement of secondary growth vegetation around the areas directly impacted to maximize the integrity of the mammal biota.
... La mayor deforestación ocurre en un radio de las carreteras que se define como área de influencia, el cual puede variar entre 5,5 km (Barber et al. 2014), 20 km (Ledezma y García Díaz 2015;Vilela et al. 2020) y 50-100 km (Alves et al. 2009;Asner et al. 2006;Chomitz y Thomas 2001). Esta puede ocurrir tanto desde la fase de preparación o proyección de las carreteras, hasta durante su construcción y mejoramiento. ...
... Amazônia os impactos ambientais induzidos pela infraestrutura estão bem documentados; por exemplo, o desmatamento ocorre predominantemente dentro de 5,5 km de estradas (Barber, et. al, 2014). ...
O desmatamento é uma atividade frequente na Amazônia, para compreender a evolução e a expansão, a análise da dinâmica de uso e cobertura da terra é relevante para compreensão os processos envolvidos na ocupação e consolidação do território na Amazônia, especialmente em unidades de conservação. pois é possível obter um conjunto de informações sobre o processo de ocupação e sua transformação. Este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar a dinâmica da paisagem nas 4 unidades de conservação em Rondônia compreendidas em 3 municípios vizinhos Cujubim, Porto Velho e Machadinho D’Oeste no período de 4 anos e verificar se há diferença da presença ou não de estradas para a preservação das unidades de conservação. Para isto, utilizou imagens Landsat 8 e 9 sensor OLI (2018, 2020, 2022) e ferramentas de geoprocessamento com uso do software Qgis 3.28.10 para mapear o uso e cobertura da terra para o período temporal proposto (2018 a 2022). Foram identificadas 4 classes de cobertura da terra, sendo elas: Floresta, Solo Exposto / Rochas Expostas, Pastagem /Capoeira e Águas Superficiais. Resultados mostraram que onde havia estradas houve a perda, de 43,6 % da área da classe florestal da ESEC Soldado da Borracha e de 6,1% da área da classe floresta RESEX Rio Preto Jacundá e consequente aumento na área de solo exposto e Na FERS Rio Machado houve um aumento de 0,4 %na categoria floresta e RDS Rio Machado e uma diminuição de apenas 2,5% na classe floresta. Portanto presença de estradas, apresentaram redução da cobertura florestal, levando a preocupações ambientais e sinalizando que práticas insustentáveis como o desmatamento e área sem a presença de acesso de estradas teve um número menor de alterações relevante no componente florestal ou até estabilidade, denotando que suas implementações são eficientes. Quanto a classificação de uso e cobertura da terra foi avaliada utilizando o cálculo do índice Kappa (k), obtendo-se assim valores entre a 0,88 e 0,96, valores estes considerados excelentes.
... Outro fator que promove o desmatamento é a disponibilidade de acesso as áreas florestadas, que facilita a exploração florestal, viabiliza a implantação de novos sistemas de produção e favorece o escoamento de produtos, além de incentivar a imigração (Gómez-Ossa & Botero-Fernández, 2017;Laurance et al., 2014). Segundo Barber et al. (2014), há influência do acesso a rodovias e rios navegáveis na exploração de recursos naturais, e em casos de acesso, a existência de áreas protegidas legalmente são formas de evitar o desmatamento. ...
O desmatamento é a retirada parcial ou total da cobertura vegetal natural e sua causa está associada a fatores físicos, sociais e econômicos. Este trabalho tem por objetivo determinar o risco de desmatamento para áreas de cobertura vegetal natural do bioma Cerrado, para 101 municípios distribuídos nos estados de Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais e Goiás, em 2019. Foi utilizada a metodologia ACEU, que considera o risco de desmatamento a partir dos fatores acessibilidade, cultivabilidade, recursos extraíveis e áreas protegidas. Essa metodologia classifica as áreas em cinco ordens de risco; muito baixo, baixo, médio, alto e muito alto, que correspondem a perda de 10, 30, 50, 70 e 90% de cobertura em 20 anos, respectivamente, sendo possível comparar o desmatamento estimado e o medido. Em 2019, os municípios de Mato Grosso tinham a maior cobertura vegetal natural, 8.443.799,21 ha, com 30,01% na classe de risco muito baixo de desmatamento, influenciado pela presença de áreas protegidas. Os municípios de Mato Grosso do Sul, tinham 3.376.271,62 ha (40,36% com risco médio de desmatamento). Nesses dois estados as diferenças entre o desmatamento estimado e medido (por imagens orbitais) foi superestimado, com 14.769,96 e 65.892,49 ha, respectivamente. Os municípios mineiros tinham 2.639.221,74 de cobertura vegetal com cerca de 27,01% com risco médio de desmatamento e os municípios de Goiás tinham a menor cobertura, com 2.410.893,09 ha, cerca de 28,19% com risco muito baixo de desmatamento, em ambos os casos o desmatamento estimado foi menor que o medido, foi subestimado, com diferença de 39.673,41 e 3.985,99 ha, respectivamente. Identificar o risco de desmatamento é pensar na possibilidade de planejar medidas que mitiguem a perda vegetal natural.
... La mayor deforestación ocurre en un radio de las carreteras que se define como área de influencia, el cual puede variar entre 5,5 km (Barber et al. 2014), 20 km (Ledezma y García Díaz 2015;Vilela et al. 2020) y 50-100 km (Alves et al. 2009;Asner et al. 2006;Chomitz y Thomas 2001). Esta puede ocurrir tanto desde la fase de preparación o proyección de las carreteras, hasta durante su construcción y mejoramiento. ...
... In such a way that today this issue is considered as one of the basic problems of natural areas (Mahdavi, 2012;Saito et al., 2013). Roads are essential in term of fire management, disease control and timber harvesting in forest lands as well as they are important in recreational and conservation activities (Barber et al., 2014). ...
... The socio-environmental costs of such infrastructure are very high 8 . For example, roads lead to deforestation; over 90% of deforestation occurs within 5.5 km of existing roads 1,9 ; and, in many cases, dam construction has resulted in high levels of illegality and inequality in nearby cities due to migrant workers, in addition to violations of Indigenous peoples and local communities' (IPLC) rights 1,10,11 . Some aspects are not sufficiently taken into account as potentially impacted by infrastructure, such as non-monetary benefits provided by Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) and innovation, biodiversity, and other aspects brought by standing and connected forests and rivers 12 . ...
Infrastructure in the Amazon, Infrastructural policy for the Amazon
... Las carreteras en la Amazonía están profundamente relacionadas con la deforestación 8,9 ; por lo tanto, dar prioridad a modos de transporte alternativos podría ayudar a lograr la conectividad deseada con menores impactos ambientales. Las carreteras, tanto legales como ilegales, facilitan el acceso a los especuladores de tierras y a la maquinaria para la minería y la Este informe de políticas se centra en el transporte, la energía, el agua y el saneamiento y la infraestructura digital. ...
El estado actual de la infraestructura en la Amazonía prioriza los intereses nacionales de desarrollo, particularmente en las industrias extractivas y las políticas industriales nacionales, a expensas de las poblaciones locales y las preocupaciones ambientales. Esto condujo a procesos de desarrollo insostenibles y de baja calidad, principalmente a la deforestación causada por la infraestructura de transporte existente. Los mensajes clave proponen un cambio en el paradigma de la infraestructura, haciendo hincapié en una configuración espacial que incorpore soluciones basadas en la naturaleza y el conocimiento indígena y local. Los autores hacen hincapié en la necesidad de una regulación y una supervisión sólidas a la hora de invertir en transporte para evitar mayores daños ambientales, y abogan por un enfoque de red que tenga en cuenta el transporte acuático y aéreo para minimizar el impacto. A pesar de exportar energía desde grandes instalaciones hidroeléctricas, la Amazonía enfrenta déficits de suministro de energía, especialmente en áreas aisladas. Los autores se defienden contra la construcción de grandes represas hidroeléctricas y sugieren la creación de turbinas hidrocinéticas a pequeña escala para el suministro remoto de energía. Promover la energía renovable asequible, confiable y a pequeña escala también es esencial para el desarrollo sostenible. El acceso al agua potable y al saneamiento es limitado en la Amazonía, a pesar de sus abundantes recursos hídricos. Los autores abogan por enfoques integrados, que incorporen nuevos métodos y tecnologías para garantizar el agua potable y el saneamiento, y por conceptos de economía circular para la gestión de los residuos sólidos. La conectividad digital se considera crucial para el desarrollo social y económico, y hace hincapié en la importancia del sector de las comunicaciones para reducir las barreras de acceso a la educación y la salud. El desarrollo de procesos, productos y mercados innovadores se destaca como un resultado positivo de la mejora de la conectividad digital en la región.
... Despite the many PAs located in the Amazon, the biome continues to be under threat. The deforestation Arc has aggressive mining, select ive logging, predatory agriculture, general colonisation pressures, road penetration and man-made fires (Figs 1-3; Barber et al. 2014, Nepstad et al. 2001. For instance, near 1.8% of the jaguar population has been displaced by de forestation in the last five years in the Brazil ian Amazon (Menezes et al. 2021). ...
The jaguar Panthera onca is widely distributed throughout South America with its stronghold in the Amazon. It is protected by law in all countries, but some countries have legal loopholes and all lack a strict enforcement of the laws in place. Jaguar killing is common, even in strictly protected areas, but detailed records are lacking. Jaguars have been historically hunted for their pelts, however, inclusion of the species in the CITES Appendix I proved effective to curtail the spotted cat trade in the 1960s and 70s. Over the last few decades, there exists little information on jaguar hunting for trade, but recently reports have surfaced showing increased illegal trafficking of body parts with evidence of domestic and Asiatic demand. Conservation of jaguars in South America has been relatively well-informed by research data. National parks and indigenous lands have been and still are the cornerstones for jaguar conservation throughout the continent, but are hampered, with a few exceptions, by underfunding, understaffing and a lack of governance and political will. Financing the operation of national parks and protected areas, while securing rights of indigenous lands should be a priority for funding agencies, especially in areas where most jaguar populations are restricted to protected areas like Argentina and south-eastern Brazil. In countries where jaguars are still widespread efforts should also be directed toward unprotected areas where threats like habitat loss and killing are higher. There the biggest management challenge is upscaling conflict prevention and mitigation measures. The Jaguar 2030 Roadmap marks a milestone for the species, aiming to join range governments, NGOs and private partners to advance conservation action for jaguars, but getting the initiative off the ground is the current challenge. It is noteworthy to highlight the importance and need for transboundary cooperation and action, especially among the trans-frontier population hotspots. The new, or emerging threats like jaguar part smuggling and man-made fires need extra attention and action to be curtailed. If jaguar conservation is to be effective despite increasing threats, it needs to be streamlined from high level agreements through scalable effects on the ground, combining protected areas, corridors, and local people buy-in.
... At the same time, the rainforest in the Amazon Basin has long been the global hotspot of tropical forest loss (Austin et al., 2017;Weisse et al., 2023), facing unprecedented pressures from several large-scale infrastructure projects, particularly the expansion of the road network Soares-Filho et al., 2006;Vilela et al., 2020). In the Brazilian Amazon, 94% of all deforestation occurs within 5.5 km of roads (Barber et al., 2014), illustrating the crucial role that road creation plays in forest clearing, as they facilitate resource extraction (Fearnside, 2007;Kirby et al., 2006;Laurance et al., 2002). Aside from deforestation and forest degradation, roads can also strongly affect wildlife populations through multiple direct (e.g., collision with vehicles and hunting) and indirect mechanisms (e.g., changes in behavior due to road avoidance and lower habitat quality for the surrounding area due to sound, air, and water pollution) (Forman & Alexander, 1998;Trombulak & Frissell, 2000). ...
Proximity to roads is one of the main determinants of deforestation in the Amazon basin. Determining the construction year of roads (CYR) is critical to improve the understanding of the drivers of road construction and to enable predictions of the expansion of the road network and its consequent impact on ecosystems. While recent artificial intelligence approaches have been successfully used for road extraction, they have typically relied on high spatial‐resolution imagery, precluding their adoption for the determination of CYR for older roads. In this article, we developed a new approach to automate the process of determining CYR that relies on the approximate position of the current road network and a time‐series of the proportion of exposed soil based on the multidecadal remote sensing imagery from the Landsat program. Starting with these inputs, our methodology relies on the Least Cost Path algorithm to co‐register the road network and on a Before‐After Control‐Impact design to circumvent the inherent image‐to‐image variability in the estimated amount of exposed soil. We demonstrate this approach for a 357 000 km ² area around the Transamazon highway (BR‐230) in the Brazilian Amazon, encompassing 36 240 road segments. The reliability of this approach is assessed by comparing the estimated CYR using our approach to the observed CYR based on a time‐series of Landsat images. This exercise reveals a close correspondence between the estimated and observed CYR (). Finally, we show how these data can be used to assess the effectiveness of protected areas (PAs) in reducing the yearly rate of road construction and thus their vulnerability to future degradation. In particular, we find that integral protection PAs in this region were generally more effective in reducing the expansion of the road network when compared to sustainable use PAs.
... The socio-environmental costs of such infrastructure are very high 8 . For example, roads lead to deforestation; over 90% of deforestation occurs within 5.5 km of existing roads 1,9 ; and, in many cases, dam construction has resulted in high levels of illegality and inequality in nearby cities due to migrant workers, in addition to violations of Indigenous peoples and local communities' (IPLC) rights 1,10,11 . Some aspects are not sufficiently taken into account as potentially impacted by infrastructure, such as non-monetary benefits provided by Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) and innovation, biodiversity, and other aspects brought by standing and connected forests and rivers 12 . ...
The current state of infrastructure in the Amazon prioritizes national development interests, particularly in extractive industries and domestic industrial policies, at the expense of local populations and environmental concerns. This has led to unsustainable, low-quality development processes, mainly deforestation caused by existing transportation infrastructure.
The key messages propose a shift in the infrastructure paradigm, emphasizing a spatial configuration incorporating nature-based solutions and Indigenous and local knowledge. The authors stress the need for strong regulation and enforcement when investing in transport to prevent further environmental damage, advocating for a network approach that considers water and air transport to minimize impact.
Despite exporting power from large hydroelectric installations, the Amazon faces energy supply deficits, especially in isolated areas. The authors advocate against new large hydropower dams and suggest small-scale hydrokinetic turbines for remote energy provision. Promoting affordable, reliable, and small-scale renewable energy is also essential for sustainable development.
Access to clean drinking water and sanitation is limited in the Amazon despite its abundant water resources. The authors call for integrated approaches, incorporating new methods and technologies to ensure safe water and sanitation and circular economy concepts for solid waste management.
Digital connectivity is deemed crucial for social and economic development, emphasizing the importance of the communications sector in reducing barriers to education and healthcare access. Developing innovative processes, products, and markets is highlighted as a positive outcome of improved digital connectivity in the region.
... From this study, it is clear that the current practice of shifting cultivation in Eastern Amazon is not sustainable in terms of productivity. Besides, slash-and-burn practices can be a threat to secondary forests, by increasing risks of wild fires (Alencar et al., 2015;Barber et al., 2014;Cardoso et al., 2003), and by contributing to carbon loss (Lapola et al., 2023) and biodiversity loss (Coelho et al., 2012;Mamede and Araújo, 2008). In this context, the need for changing the local slash-and-burn practices towards fire-free production systems has been proclaimed (Kato et al., 1999;Lojka et al., 2008). ...
Reconciling forest preservation and agricultural production is a major challenge. In Brazil, environmental laws have been introduced to reduce forest degradation associated with the expansion of agriculture. However, these laws are constraining small-scale family farmers who rely on cassava produced in shifting cultivation. Faced by scarcity of land, farmers are reducing the fallow periods on their farms. In this study, our hypothesis was that the reduction of the fallow period in shifting cultivation systems leads to a depletion of soil fertility and an increase in weed pressure. In the Brazilian Eastern Amazon region, soil fertility and weed infestation indicators were assessed in 36 cassava fields under shifting cultivation with different land-use histories. The frequency of cultivation of the fields in the past 10 years ranged from 1 to 7 and averaged 3.7 ± 2.3. The results show that the most frequently cultivated fields had lower soil fertility, indicated by lower soil organic carbon, total nitrogen and exchangeable potassium and pH. In addition, labor input for weeding and weeding frequency increased with the frequency of cultivation of the fields, indicating that weed pressure increased with intensified crop cultivation and shorter fallow periods. The findings of this study make clear that the current trend of reducing the fallow period in the Eastern Amazon is a threat to the sustainability and productivity of the local shifting cultivation systems. There is an urgent need for alternative production systems that allow for a better weed control and that contribute to restoring and maintaining soil fertility.
... It is important to note that the species possibly might be endangered in some degree mainly by the loss of their habitat caused by the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the so-called 'arc of deforestation' of Amazonia, which includes the entire state of Rondônia (Dall'Igna & Maniesi, 2022) and by the existence of two federal roads that cross the Rondônia centre of endemism, which may soon be paved: BR-230 (Transamazonian Highway) and BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho Highway). According to Barber et al. (2014), around 95% of all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonia is located in a strip of 5.5 km along roads and 1 km along rivers, and according to Ferrante et al. (2021), paving roads is the main source of access to unprotected land in the region. Another threat to the species is the weakening of the Brazilian environmental agencies and forest code, which generates expectations of impunity that encourages deforestation acts (Ferrante & Fearnside, 2019), even in well-established protected areas, as observed in the state of Rondônia since 2020 (Messias, M.R., pers. ...
The arboreal rice rat of the genus Oecomys Thomas, 1906 is one of the most speciose genera of the subfamilySigmodontinae, with 19 species currently recognized and occurring from eastern Panama to northern Argentina,Paraguay, and in northern, central and eastern Brazil. Herein we describe a new species using an integrative approachbased on molecular, morphological, and morphometric data. We used in our assessment recently collected specimensfrom the states of Para and Rond^onia, one of the most deforested regions in Brazil. We examined 51 specimens ofOecomys from museum collections including name-bearing types from most of the distributional range of the genus. Wealso sequenced 32 specimens of Oecomys, and for the molecular analyses, we used the mitochondrial markerCytochrome b and the nuclear marker intron 7 of b-fibrinogen. Our mitochondrial marker results recovered a stronglysupported clade composed of two divergent clades (3.78%), one including lineages of O. bicolor and O. cleberi, and theother clade representing the new species. The topology of concatenated mitochondrial and nuclear data also recoveredOecomys sp. nov. as a sister lineage of the O. bicolor and O. cleberi clade. Also, both markers recovered new lineagesfrom the O. bicolor and O. cleberi species group. The new species can be discriminated from other Oecomys species bypelage colour and craniodental characters, such as absent or small mastoid fenestra, and the presence of alisphenoidstrut, small subsquamosal fenestra, presence of sphenopalatine vacuities, and presence of accessory loph of M1 and M2paracones. The new species occurs exclusively in the Rondonia centre of endemism, delimited by the rivers Amazon tothe north, Tapajos to the east, and Madeira to the west. The description of this new Oecomys increases the diversity,and also contributes to elevate Amazonian Sigmodontinae species richness and endemism in this still poorly knownbiome
... Deforestation often begins with the construction of road networks and fences that have negative direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity [14][15][16][17]. Indirect impacts from illegal logging, poaching, mining, and urban encroachment often accompany or result from road construction [18][19][20][21][22]. Any existing road in a forested area leads to further deforestation; about 5% of deforestation occurs within a five-kilometer buffer of a road network or a one-kilometer buffer of a navigable river [23,24]. The greatest threat to wild orangutan populations in Borneo and Sumatra is the loss of their habitat to road development, which exacerbates agricultural expansion, illegal timber harvesting, mining, and human encroachment. ...
Ecosystem destruction and biodiversity loss are now widespread, extremely rapid, and among the top global anthropogenic risks both in terms of likelihood and overall impact. Thorough impact evaluation of these environmental abuses—essential for conservation and future project planning—requires good analysis of local ecological and environmental data in addition to social and economic impacts. We characterized the deforestation and biodiversity impacts of energy investments in Southeast Asia using multiple geospatial data sources related to forest cover and loss data from 2000 to 2018, other landcover data, and the location, type, and characteristics of energy investments. This study paid particular attention to different types of power plants and financing sources. We identified critical buffer zones and forest structures impacted by these projects in accordance with IUCN criteria and spatial ecology. The paper introduces a novel, replicable analytical framework that goes beyond earlier studies in which all forests are treated as equivalent. It characterizes forests based on spatial morphological structures such as core forest, edges, islands, and bridges, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of deforestation and its impacts on biodiversity. Preliminary findings suggest that projects financed by Chinese development banks pose different risks compared to non-Chinese financing. The study also reveals significant differences in biodiversity impacts based on the type of energy source, be it coal or hydro. The study offers critical insights into the trade-offs between energy development and biodiversity conservation. It provides actionable metrics and strategies for policymakers, conservationists, and development banks to prioritize forest and habitat preservation in Southeast Asia and globally.
... This pattern develops along roads connecting to riverside towns and cities, as can be seen in the evolution of deforestation shown inFig. 8, corroborating the studies byCastro et al. (2004),Nepstad et al. (2006),Barber et al. (2014), dosSantos-Júnior, et al. (2018) and Fearnside (2022a,Evolution of deforestation around the simulated roads over time in the BAU_2 scenario. The figure shows part of the region of influence of AM-366 (Trans-Purus). ...
The scenario of deforestation in the Amazon may change with the reconstruction of Highway BR-319, a long-distance road that will expand the region’s agricultural frontier towards the north and west of the Western Amazon, stretches that until then have extensive areas of primary forest due to the hard access. We simulate the deforestation that would be caused by the reconstruction and paving of Highway BR-319 in Brazil’s state of Amazonas for the period from 2021 to 2100. The scenarios were based on the historical dynamics of deforestation in the state of Amazonas (business as usual, or BAU). Two deforestation scenarios were developed: (a) BAU_1, where Highway BR-319 is not reconstructed, maintaining its current status, and (b) BAU_2, where the reconstruction and paving of the highway will take place in 2025, favoring the advance of the deforestation frontier to the northern and western portion of the state of Amazonas. In the scenario where the highway reconstruction is foreseen (BAU_2), the results show that deforestation increased by 60% by 2100 compared to the scenario without reconstruction (BAU_1), demonstrating that paving would increase deforestation beyond the limits of the highway’s official buffer area (40 km). The study showed that protected areas (conservation units and indigenous lands) help to maintain forest cover in the Amazon region. At the same time, it shows how studies like this one can help in decision-making.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon remains a challenge due to its detrimental effects on ecosystems and the associated increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Such deforestation can be driven by foreign demand in terms of international exports, as well as domestic demand. However, most efforts to quantify the associations between consumer markets and deforestation mainly consider international exports rather than domestic and local sources of demand. Here we show that economic demand originating in the more developed Brazilian centre-south imposes a much stronger pressure on the Amazon’s deforestation than local (within the Amazon) and foreign export demand. Acknowledging domestic markets as a critical driver of changes in forest cover in the region emphasizes the need for increased engagement by national and transnational stakeholders operating in national markets in Brazil. Domestic environmental traceability must be linked to sanitary and fiscal controls at interstate and interregional borders, helping promote transparency in the deforestation intensity of inputs and products originating from the Brazilian Legal Amazon. This would promote sustainability by better informing policymakers about potential future stress regarding the Amazon’s resources under different scenarios of population growth, socio-economic development paths, institutional reforms and technical change.
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Deforestation rates in the Amazon have markedly increased in the last few years, affecting non-protected and protected areas (PAs). Brazil is a hotspot of Protected Area Downgrading, Downsizing, and Degazettement (PADDD) events, with most events associated with infrastructure projects. Despite the threats dams impose on PAs, there is a knowledge gap in assessing deforestation in PAs around large dams in the Amazon. This study investigates how deforestation affects Biodiversity Protection Areas (BioPAs) and Indigenous Lands around the Jirau and Santo Antônio (JSA) dams (Madeira River, Rondônia) and Belo Monte dam (Xingu River, Pará) in the Brazilian Amazon. We compared clear-cutting between PAs and control areas and the annual rates of forest change between pre-dam and post-dam periods. We discussed deforestation-related factors (e.g., PADDD events and the presence of management plans or councils). Our results show an increase in deforestation after the operation of the dams when environmental control from licensing agencies decreases and other political and economic factors are in practice. Indigenous Lands experienced a significant increase in deforestation around the Belo Monte dam, which is associated with the demarcation process and land conflicts. Surrounding the JSA dams, sustainable use BioPAs showed high deforestation rates, and 27 PADDD events were reported, four directly related to dams. In addition to dams, deforestation was associated with the crisis of Brazilian democracy and the weakening of environmental policies. In conclusion, the weak environmental control from environmental licensing agencies during dam operation and PADDD events have contributed to increased deforestation rates and additional stresses in the Amazon.
Roads are expanding at the fastest pace in human history. This is the case especially in biodiversity-rich tropical nations, where roads can result in forest loss and fragmentation, wildfires, illicit land invasions and negative societal effects1–5. Many roads are being constructed illegally or informally and do not appear on any existing road map6–10; the toll of such ‘ghost roads’ on ecosystems is poorly understood. Here we use around 7,000 h of effort by trained volunteers to map ghost roads across the tropical Asia-Pacific region, sampling 1.42 million plots, each 1 km² in area. Our intensive sampling revealed a total of 1.37 million km of roads in our plots—from 3.0 to 6.6 times more roads than were found in leading datasets of roads globally. Across our study area, road building almost always preceded local forest loss, and road density was by far the strongest correlate¹¹ of deforestation out of 38 potential biophysical and socioeconomic covariates. The relationship between road density and forest loss was nonlinear, with deforestation peaking soon after roads penetrate a landscape and then declining as roads multiply and remaining accessible forests largely disappear. Notably, after controlling for lower road density inside protected areas, we found that protected areas had only modest additional effects on preventing forest loss, implying that their most vital conservation function is limiting roads and road-related environmental disruption. Collectively, our findings suggest that burgeoning, poorly studied ghost roads are among the gravest of all direct threats to tropical forests.
Las desigualdades sociales en América Latina siguen siendo evidentes con respecto a los derechos sobre la tierra y la tenencia de recursos. Los proyectos de infraestructura constituyen un elemento clave de las políticas que sirven para mantener tales desigualdades, porque la planificación de la infraestructura está dominada por poderosos intereses y excluye a las partes interesadas subalternas. Esto ha motivado un enfoque en temas de gobernanza de la infraestructura y las estrategias de los grupos subalternos para influir en la planificación. Nos enfocamos en la Amazonía, el objetivo de muchos proyectos de infraestructura y el hogar de muchos grupos subalternos que se han movilizado para resistir la infraestructura y mejorar la gobernanza. Presentamos tres estudios de caso en los que las partes interesadas subalternas siguieron estrategias para intervenir en la planificación de la infraestructura. Dos casos se centran en estrategias instrumentales que buscan un impacto directo por enfoques legales y de comunicación. El tercer caso destaca la colaboración como una estrategia indirecta para apoyar estrategias instrumentales, presentando los factores que afectan la colaboración intercultural. Los casos ofrecen experiencias concretas de diferentes estrategias de los pueblos subalternos para intervenir en la planificación de infraestructura para mejorar la gobernabilidad.
In an increasingly human-and road-dominated world, the preservation of functional ecosystems has become highly relevant. While the negative ecological impacts of roads on ecosystems are numerous and well documented, roadless areas have been proposed as proxy for functional ecosystems. However, their potential remains underexplored, partly due to the incomplete mapping of roads. We assessed the accuracy of roadless areas identification using freely available road-data in two regions with contrasting levels of anthropogenic influence: boreal Canada and temperate Central Europe (Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, and Hungary). Within randomly selected circular plots (per region and country), we visually examined the completeness of road mapping using OpenStreetMap 2020 and assessed whether human influences affect mapping quality using four variables. In boreal Canada, roads were completely mapped in 3% of the plots, compared to 40% in Central Europe. Lower Human Footprint Index and road density values were related to greater incompleteness in road mapping. Roadless areas, defined as areas at least 1 km away from any road, covered 85% of the surface in boreal Canada (mean size ± s.d. = 272 ± 12,197 km 2), compared to only 0.4% in temperate Central Europe (mean size ± s.d. = 0.6 ± 3.1 km 2). By visually interpreting and manually adding unmapped roads in 30 randomly selected roadless areas from each study country, we observed a similar reduction in roadless surface in both Canada and Central Europe (27% vs 28%) when all roads were included. This study highlights the urgent need for improved road mapping techniques to support research on roadless areas as conservation targets and surrogates of functional ecosystems.
The expansion of roads into wilderness areas and biodiversity hotspots in the Global South seems inevitable and is predicted to bring about significant biodiversity loss. Even so, existing widespread strategies aiming to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts of roads on the environment have been of limited effectiveness. These tactics, including construction of fencing, wildlife crossings on paved roads, and establishment of protected areas along the roads, are unlikely to be sufficient for protecting diverse species assemblages from roadkill, habitat fragmentation, and anthropogenic activity in tropics. This indicates the need for integration of more ambitious approaches into the conservation toolkit, such as the constructing tunnels, covered ways, and elevated roads. Although these tools could significantly support conservation efforts to save tropical biodiversity, to date, they are rarely considered. Here, we discuss factors which determine the need for application of these approaches in the Global South. We highlight the often-overlooked long-term benefits associated with the application of the proposed tools. We also discuss the potential challenges and risks, and the ways to minimise them. Hopefully this article will encourage practitioners to integrate these strategies into conservation toolkits and allow policy-makers and investors to make informed decisions on sustainable road infrastructure development in the Global South.
The pressing concerns associated with climate change underscore the critical need for environmental conservation and sustainable resource management. As technological and industrial advancements continue to drive an escalating demand for materials, the extraction of which often involves mining, the imperative to explore novel methodologies for assessing and mitigating the environmental impact of such operations becomes evident. This study proposes a novel approach utilizing fuzzy logic to calculate the Forest Health Index (FHI), introducing both a Fuzzy Constructive FHI and a Fuzzy Destructive FHI index, each ranging from 0 to 100. The disparity between these indices, ranging from − 100 to 100, elucidates the overall forest health index. The study employs the Sungun copper mine as a case study, situated within the Arasbaran environmental protected area, which necessitates the application of forest-smart mining regulations and policies. To examine the impact of mining operations on forest health, remote sensing is employed to identify potential porphyry copper mineralization areas and to visualize deforestation trends at the Sungun copper mine from 2008 to 2023. Vegetation indices are utilized to estimate the Forest Health Index (FHI) through remote sensing methodologies, incorporating a combination of expert opinions and guest numbers to assess variables influencing the FHI. Results indicate that the Forest Health Index (FFHI) for Sungun is 2.1, with maximum and minimum FFHIs observed in Merian (37.92) and Nimba Range Mineral Province (NRMP) (-25.7), respectively. The outcomes emphasize the importance of implementing forest-smart mining practices to mitigate the adverse effects of mining activities on the Arasbaran forest and promote conditions conducive to forest health.
Our aim is to provide an update about what we know and do not know about primates in Brazilian Amazonia, as well as to highlight key threats and to identify research and conservation priorities. Here, we provide a history of primatology in the Brazilian Amazon and a literature review of primate research locations there between 1968 and 2018. Most of the 558 studies identified occurred along the larger navigable rivers, with interfluvial terra firma forests relatively neglected and insufficiently surveyed. Population surveys are needed in the interfluvia of the larger rivers, such as the Tapajós-Xingu interfluvium, and headwaters of the larger rivers and their tributaries near the borders of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, as well as in northern parts of Mato Grosso and Pará. Even noninterfluvial areas such as coastal eastern Amazonia are in urgent need of inventories. Despite much recent progress, we still need to invest in more genetic research along with traditional ecology. The high deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon warns that efficient measures to curb forest loss must be implemented in the short to medium term to avoid the extinction of primate populations and species, since 36 primates there are now ranked as threatened with extinction.
Based on phytosociological methods and land cover change analysis, previous studies in Segara Anakan Lagoon (SAL) indicated the spreading of mangrove species living in the forest margin ecotone into the forest interior, encroaching the other mangrove communities. This current study aims to quantify the spreading pattern of those mangrove species, assess the effect of the spreading of those mangrove species to the other mangrove communities, and identify the location of the spreading pattern relative to the newly emerged islands. The spreading pattern can be demonstrated by analyzing landscape structures quantified by landscape metrics. It was done using multi-temporal mangrove maps, representing the changes in mangrove communities over four periods with a decade interval. The landscape metrics used were the aggregation index, the size of community patches, and the distance between the patches. These metrics were extracted by using landscape metrics , an R package. The changes in the metrics over time were compared namely 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. The results showed that the small patches of the forest margin species became more aggregated into a larger patch, while the mangrove forests became more fragmented. This condition occurred most in the west part of SAL where the new islands emerged.
Sustainable forest management (SFM) practices are required to conserve forest ecosystem services. International agreements and national management plans have been developed to avoid deforestation and increase forest sustainability. Due to the high rate of deforestation and its increasing trend in the past, the most important conservation policy (the Forest Rest Plan) in Hyrcanian forests (HFs) has been in place since 2016 to conserve the HFs, which are a UNESCO World Heritage site. The aim of the Forest Rest Plan (FRP) is to increase the crown cover, resilience, and production of HFs. Here, we apply a robust methodology based on Landsat-8-derived spectral-temporal features, spatial analysis, stepwise multilevel logistic regression, and scientific forest management knowledge to determine how the FRP, climate change, anthropogenic activities, and the environmental conditions influence deforestation and forest recovery. We identified and evaluated 18 explanatory variables, including socioeconomic, climatic, and physiographic factors, to determine the key drivers of forest cover change. Our findings revealed complex interactions between distinct land features that occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales in HFs as connected human–natural systems. Further, we found a decreasing trend in deforestation and a growing trend in forest recovery resulting from implementation of the FRP. Additionally, our stepwise multilevel logistic regression identified impacts of climate change, human pressure, and some physiographic factors, such as forest density, on deforestation and forest recovery. We conclude that while some positive impacts can already be identified, additional adaptive, preventative, and restorative strategies must be developed to reach all FRP objectives.
Over the past several decades, the Brazilian State of Rondônia has been the destination of many rural migrants drawn from Brazil's middle southern regions by massive government colonization projects. Factors such as explosive population growth, logging, mining, small-scale farming and ranching have synergistically fuelled deforestation in the state. The total area deforested in Rondônia in 1978 was 4200 km2. In 1988, the area increased to 30 000 km2, in 1998 to 53 300 km2 and by the year 2003, a total of 67 764 km2 of Rondônia was deforested. In response to the high rate of deforestation observed in Rondônia and other Amazonian states, state and federal agencies worked to create a network of conservation units (CUs) in Brazil during the 1990s that was signed into law(Law 9985/00) in 2000. The ability of these CUs to reduce the rate of deforestation was analysed. Remotely-sensed data from Landsat and thematic coverages were used to measure deforestation inside all CUs in Rondônia. A more detailed analysis of CUs with the highest levels of deforestation, including an analysis between soil types and deforestation and a forecast of potential future deforestation, was conducted. The creation of conservation units in Rondônia has been useful in curbing deforestation within their boundaries; however, many CUs face pressure from the combined activities of illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and small-scale farmers seeking new sources of timber and agricultural land. For example, an exponential increase in the amount of deforestation was observed in Rondônia's Bom Futuro National Forest between 1992 and 2000. A regression model indicated a total of 20 500 ha deforested by 2002, while measurements from 2002 imagery showed an actual total deforestation of 20 720 ha. Should this trend persist, Bom Futuro National Forest could be completely deforested by 2017. CUs in Rondônia must be developed and implemented jointly by all stakeholders through the creation of partnerships between local communities, non-governmental organizations and government agencies.
This paper assesses quantification methods for carbon leakage from forestry
activities for their suitability in leakage accounting in a future Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism. To that end, we first conducted
a literature review to identify specific pre-requisites for leakage assessment in REDD. We
then analyzed a total of 34 quantification methods for leakage emissions from the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the Climate
Action Reserve (CAR), the CarbonFix Standard (CFS), and from scientific literature
sources. We screened these methods for the leakage aspects they address in terms of
leakage type, tools used for quantification and the geographical scale covered. Results
show that leakage methods can be grouped into nine main methodological approaches, six
of which could fulfill the recommended REDD leakage requirements if approaches for
primary and secondary leakage are combined. The majority of methods assessed, address
either primary or secondary leakage; the former mostly on a local or regional and the latter
on national scale. The VCS is found to be the only carbon accounting standard at present to
fulfill all leakage quantification requisites in REDD. However, a lack of accounting
methods was identified for international leakage, which was addressed by only two
methods, both from scientific literature.
Forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon due to selective logging and forest fires may greatly increase the human footprint beyond outright deforestation. We demonstrate a method to quantify annual deforestation and degradation simultaneously across the entire region for the years 2000-2010 using high-resolution Landsat satellite imagery. Combining spectral mixture analysis, normalized difference fraction index, and knowledge-based decision tree classification, we mapped and assessed the accuracy to quantify forest (0.97), deforestation (0.85) and forest degradation (0.82) with an overall accuracy of 0.92. We show that 169,074 km(2) of Amazonian forest was converted to human-dominated land uses, such as agriculture, from 2000 to 2010. In that same time frame, an additional 50,815 km(2) of forest was directly altered by timber harvesting and/or fire, equivalent to 30% of the area converted by deforestation. While average annual outright deforestation declined by 46% between the first and second halves of the study period, annual forest degradation increased by 20%. Existing operational monitoring systems (PRODES: Monitoramento da Florestal Amazonica Brasileira por Satelite) report deforestation area to within 2% of our results, but do not account for the extensive forest degradation occurring throughout the region due to selective logging and forest fire. Annual monitoring of forest degradation across tropical forests is critical for developing land management policies as well as the monitoring of carbon stocks/emissions and protected areas.
One of the most challenging technical issues associated with project-based mechanisms is that of leakage. A conceptual framework is proposed for the identification and analysis of leakage potentially generated by a project. The categorization of leakage based on the actors responsible for their manifestation is proposed, which divides sources of leakage into primary and secondary types. It is the actors or agents responsible for the baseline activities that cause primary leakage. Secondary leakage occurs when the project's outputs create incentives for third parties to increase emissions elsewhere. This distinction, based on the source of leakage, provides a basis for the analysis outlined in the paper. The extent and type of leakage will vary depending on the project typology and design. Using a decision tree approach, the process of identifying potential sources of leakage is demonstrated for the case study of avoided deforestation projects. If the main elements determining a baseline are properly identified and understood, in particular the `baseline agents', a combination of the decision tree approach and apportioning responsibility, can assist in the quantification and monitoring of primary leakage. An analysis at the project design stage can also assist in minimizing the risk of future leakage. Econometric methods may prove more useful in analyzing secondary leakage.
Large-scale selective logging is a relatively new activity in the Amazon and its full consequences have yet to be evaluated. Impacts by selective logging alone have been estimated to increase approximately 4-7% of the annual carbon release from deforestation. In this research, visual interpretation and semi-automated remote sensing techniques were applied to identify and map areas of selective logging in tropical terra firme (upland) forests together with the correlated multi-annual measurement results for 1992, 1996, and 1999, for the Brazilian Amazon. The research results indicate that selective logging is rapidly increasing in both intensity (regional) and area (basin-wide). By 1992, at least 5980 km2 of forest had been logged. During the 1992-1996 and 1996-1999 periods the area impacted expanded by an additional 10 064 km2, and 26 085 km2, respectively. Selective logging within protected areas increased more than twofold between 1992 and 1996, and more than fivefold between 1996 and 1999 in that region. We also estimated that at least 3689 km2 had been actively logged in 1992, an additional 5107 km2, and 11 638 km2, had been logged in 1996 and 1999, and at least 10% of total logged forests detected in 1999 were previously logged in the period of analysis.
Unofficial roads form dense networks in landscapes, generating a litany of negative ecological outcomes, but in frontier areas they are also instrumental in local livelihoods and community development. This trade-off poses dilemmas for the governance of unofficial roads. Unofficial road building in frontier areas of the Brazilian Amazon illustrates the challenges of ‘road governance.’ Both state-based and community-based governance models exhibit important liabilities for governing unofficial roads. Whereas state-based governance has experienced difficulties in adapting to specific local contexts and interacting effectively with local peoples, community-based governance has a mixed record owing to social inequalities and conflicts among local interest groups. A state-community hybrid model may offer more effective governance of unofficial road building by combining the oversight capacity of the state with locally-grounded community management via participatory decision-making.
The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.
We produced estimates of the total number of species currently known and the total numbers predicted to occur in Brazil. Lists of species recorded in Brazil were obtained from specialists and the literature. For taxa lacking information on total known species, we produced estimates based on bootstrap resampling from a set of 87 taxa with checklists for Brazil and the world. The estimated proportion of Brazilian species was 9.5% of the world total (95% CI, 8.5 to 11.5%). From this we estimated a known Brazilian biota of 170,000 to 210,000 species. We used a similar procedure to estimate Brazil's total biota—known plus undiscovered. Based on 17 relatively well-known taxa, the average Brazilian share in the world's biota was estimated at 13.1% (CI 10.0 to 17.6%). Accordingly we estimated the country's total biota at 1.8 million species (CI 1.4 to 2.4 million). Given that the Neotropics is the least-studied major region of the world, these figures are still likely to be underestimates and hence may be taken as a lower bound of the actual proportion of the world's species that occur in Brazil. Scientists, policy makers, and citizens will find these numbers useful in appreciating the magnitude of the tasks involved in surveying, describing, and conserving the country's biota. The numbers also bring proposals and priorities into a more realistic perspective.
In this article, we simulate forest fragmentation patterns by reference to the actual decision-making of the agents engaged in the fragmentation process itself. We take as our empirical case fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon basin associated with road-building by loggers. Roads
built by the private sector, particularly loggers, play a decisive role in the dynamics of frontier expansion in the Amazon. Our objective is to explain the manner in which logging roads manifest spatially, thereby creating fragmented landscapes in a small portion of the so-called “Terra
do Meio,” a region of 300,000 km2 in the heart of the Amazon basin. We combine geostatistical methods with GIS to replicate a common fragmentation pattern found in tropical forests known as dendritic. Such fragmentation has been identified as one of the three most common types
observed in the Amazon basin. The model replicates the general dendritic pattern and many branching points of the network, although segments do not overlay precisely. The paper concludes with a discussion of steps necessary to develop a model that is fully effective in describing the spatial
decision-making of loggers.
Although Brazil's first park was established in 1937, the past two decades have witnessed an explosion of protected areas. Until 1989 federal parks and reserves were created by the Brazilian Forest Development Institute (IBDF) and the Special Secretariat for the Environment (SEMA). In 1989 SEMA and IBDF were united to form the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA). A formal, unified system for federal, state, and municipal parks, the National System for Protected Areas, was made law in 2000. In 1976 IBDF drew up a biogeographical model for siting protected areas for biodiversity conservation in the Amazon, based on representation of phytogeographic regions. There are three ongoing initiatives to determine the location of new protected areas: (1) protected areas were recommended for the majority of 900 priority areas for biodiversity conservation identified in workshops held for Brazil's major biomes (1998–2000); (2) establishment of biodiversity corridors with parks and reserves as key elements; and (3) the creation of protected areas in the 23 Amazonian ecoregions identified by World Wildlife Fund—Brazil (the ARPA program). Federal and state strictly protected areas now number 478 and total 37,019,697 ha, and there are 436 sustainable-use areas totalling 74,592,691 ha. Other categories of protected areas in Brazil include private natural heritage reserves (RPPNs), which are generally small but proving important for the conservation of restricted-range and highly threatened species, and indigenous reserves, which are increasingly recognized as vital for biodiversity conservation because of their enormous size. Although Brazil has created an enormous number of protected areas over the last two decades, enormous challenges remain—not only for their administration and management—but also to protect the parks themselves as Brazil continues with its ambitious developmental programs for energy, infrastructure, industry, and agriculture.
Resumen: Aunque los el primer parque de Brasil fue establecido en 1937, las dos últimas décadas han atestiguado una explosión de áreas protegidas. Hasta 1989, los parques federales y reservas fueron creados por el Instituto Brasileño de Desarrollo Forestal (IBDF) y la Secretaría Especial del Medio Ambiente (SEMA). En 1989 SEMA e IBDF fueron unidos para formar el Instituto Brasileño para el Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales Renovables (IBAMA). En 2000, se estableció legalmente un sistema formal, unificado para parques federales, estatales y municipales, el Sistema Nacional para Áreas Protegidas. En 1976, IBDF adoptó un modelo biogeográfico para situar áreas protegidas para conservación de biodiversidad en la Amazonía, basado en la representación de regiones fitogeográficas. Actualmente están en curso tres iniciativas para determinar la ubicación de nuevas áreas protegidas: (1) se recomendó el establecimiento de áreas protegidas en la mayoría de las 900 áreas prioritarias para la conservación de la biodiversidad que fueron identificadas en talleres sobre los principales biomas de Brasil (1998-2000); (2) establecimiento de corredores de biodiversidad con parques y reservas como elementos claves; y (3) la creación de áreas protegidas en las 23 ecoregiones amazónicas identificadas por el Fondo Mundial para la Vida Silvestre–Brasil (el programa ARPA). Actualmente, hay 478 áreas federales y estatales estrictamente protegidas que abarcan un total de 37,019,697 ha, y hay 436 áreas de uso sustentable que totalizan 74,592,691 ha. Otras categorías de áreas protegidas en Brasil incluyen la Reserva Privada de Patrimonio Natural (RPPN), generalmente pequeña pero importante para la conservación de especies muy amenazadas y con distribución restringida; reservas indígenas, cada vez más reconocidas como vitales para la conservación de biodiversidad debido a su gran extensión. Aunque Brasil ha protegido una superficie enorme en las dos últimas décadas, hay enormes retos no solo para su administración y manejo, sino especialmente para proteger a los parques mismos ya que Brasil continúa con sus ambiciosos programas de desarrollo para energía, infraestructura, industria y agricultura.
Although a large literature now exists on the drivers of tropical deforestation, less is known about its spatial manifestation. This is a critical shortcoming in our knowledge base since the spatial pattern of land-cover change and forest fragmentation, in particular, strongly affect biodiversity. The purpose of this article is to consider emergent patterns of road networks, the initial proximate cause of fragmentation in tropical forest frontiers. Specifically, we address the road-building processes of loggers who are very active in the Amazon landscape. To this end, we develop an explanation of road expansions, using a positive approach combining a theoretical model of economic behavior with geographic information systems (GIS) software in order to mimic the spatial decisions of road builders. We simulate two types of road extensions commonly found in the Amazon basin in a region showing the fishbone pattern of fragmentation. Although our simulation results are only partially successful, they call attention to the role of multiple agents in the landscape, the importance of legal and institutional constraints on economic behavior, and the power of GIS as a research tool.
Many tropical nature reserves are woefully understaffed or exist only on paper Without effective implementation tropical reserves cannot count on in situ enforcement and consequently are subject to a wide range of invasive threats. Weak institutional structures are aggravated by reserve designs that facilitate rather than discourage unlawful human activities. Taking into account severe financial and institutional constraints we consider the current status of forest reserves in lowland Amazonia. We ask how the criteria by which reserves are delimited may affect the efficiency with which the contained areas are defended In a GIS analysis, we found that 40 to 100% of the area of all existing nature reserves in Brazilian Amazonia are directly accessible via navigable rivers and/or functional roads. Such access greatly facilitates the illegal harvest and conversion of forest resources in a region where each guard is responsible for protecting an area larger than the State of Delaware. Cost-effective defense of large areas can be achieved through appropriate delimitation of reserves along watershed divides and by efficient deployment of limited infrastructure and personnel. Given current and probable future levels of financial resources allocated to reserve maintenance in Amazonia, any new nature reserves in this region should be designed and situated so that their defensibility is maximized. Defensibility criteria should complement site considerations based on biological criteria, such as presumed centers of diversity and endemism.
Ongoing alliances between indigenous peoples and conservation organizations in the Brazilian Amazon have helped achieve the official recognition of ∼1 million km² of indigenous lands. The future of Amazonian indigenous reserves is of strategic importance for the fate of biodiversity in the region. We examined the legislation governing resource use on indigenous lands and summarize the history of the Kayapo people's consolidation of their >100,000 km² territory. Like many Amazonian indigenous peoples, the Kayapo have halted the expansion of the agricultural frontier on their lands but allow selective logging and gold mining. Prospects for long-term conservation and sustainability in these lands depend on indigenous peoples' understandings of their resource base and on available economic alternatives. Although forest conservation is not guaranteed by either tenure security or indigenous knowledge, indigenous societies' relatively egalitarian common-property resource management regimes—along with adequate incentives and long-term partnerships with conservation organizations—can achieve this result. Successful initiatives include Conservation International's long-term project with the A'ukre Kayapo village and incipient large-scale territorial monitoring and control in the Kayapo territory, and the Instituto SocioAmbiental (ISA) 15-year partnership with the peoples of the Xingu Indigenous Park, with projects centered on territorial monitoring and control, education, community organization, and economic alternatives. The recent agreement on ecological restoration of the Xingu River headwaters between ranchers and private companies, indigenous peoples, and environmentalists, brokered by ISA, marks the emergence of an indigenous and conservation alliance of sufficient cohesiveness and legitimacy to negotiate effectively at a regional scale.
Concern about the future of Amazonian forests is growing as both the extent and rate of primary forest destruction increase. We combine spatial information on various biophysical, demographic and infrastructural factors in the Brazilian Amazon with satellite data on deforestation to evaluate the relative importance of each factor to deforestation in the region. We assess the sensitivity of results to alternative sampling methodologies, and compare our results to those of previous empirical studies of Amazonian deforestation. Our findings, in concert with those of previous studies, send a clear message to planners: both paved and unpaved roads are key drivers of the deforestation process. Proximity to previous clearings, high population densities, low annual rainfall, and long dry seasons also increase the likelihood that a site will be deforested; however, roads are consistently important and are the factors most amenable to policymaking. We argue that there is ample evidence to justify a fundamental change in current Amazonian development priorities if additional large-scale losses of forests and environmental services are to be avoided.
We assessed the effects of biophysical and anthropogenic predictors on deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia. This region has the world's highest absolute rates of forest destruction and fragmentation.
Using a GIS, spatial data coverages were developed for deforestation and for three types of potential predictors: (1) human-demographic factors (rural-population density, urban-population size); (2) factors that affect physical accessibility to forests (linear distances to the nearest paved highway, unpaved road and navigable river), and (3) factors that may affect land-use suitability for human occupation and agriculture (annual rainfall, dry-season severity, soil fertility, soil waterlogging, soil depth). To reduce the effects of spatial autocorrelation among variables, the basin was subdivided into >1900 quadrats of 50 × 50 km, and a random subset of 120 quadrats was selected that was stratified on deforestation intensity. A robust ordination analysis (non-metric multidimensional scaling) was then used to identify key orthogonal gradients among the ten original predictor variables.
The ordination revealed two major environmental gradients in the study area. Axis 1 discriminated among areas with relatively dense human populations and highways, and areas with sparse populations and no highways; whereas axis 2 described a gradient between wet sites having low dry-season severity, many navigable rivers and few roads, and those with opposite values. A multiple regression analysis revealed that both factors were highly significant predictors, collectively explaining nearly 60% of the total variation in deforestation intensity (F2,117=85.46, P < 0.0001). Simple correlations of the original variables were highly concordant with the multiple regression model and suggested that highway density and rural-population size were the most important correlates of deforestation.
These trends suggest that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is being largely determined by three proximate factors: human population density, highways and dry-season severity, all of which increase deforestation. At least at the spatial scale of this analysis, soil fertility and waterlogging had little influence on deforestation activity, and soil depth was only marginally significant. Our findings suggest that current policy initiatives designed to increase immigration and dramatically expand highway and infrastructure networks in the Brazilian Amazon are likely to have important impacts on deforestation activity. Deforestation will be greatest in relatively seasonal, south-easterly areas of the basin, which are most accessible to major population centres and where large-scale cattle ranching and slash-and-burn farming are most easily implemented.
Reserves are the principal means to conserve forests and biodiversity, but the question of whether reserves work is still debated. In the Amazon, fires are closely linked to deforestation, and thus can be used as a proxy for reserve effectiveness in protecting forest cover. We ask whether reserves in the Brazilian Amazon provide effective protection against deforestation and consequently fires, whether that protection is because of their location or their legal status, and whether some reserve types are more effective than others.
Previous work has shown that most Amazonian fires occur close to roads and are more frequent in El Niño years. We quantified these relationships for reserves and unprotected areas by examining satellite-detected hot pixels regressed against road distance across the entire Brazilian Amazon and for a decade with 2 El Niño-related droughts. Deforestation fires, as measured by hot pixels, declined exponentially with increasing distance from roads in all areas. Fewer deforestation fires occurred within protected areas than outside and the difference between protected and unprotected areas was greatest near roads. Thus, reserves were especially effective at preventing these fires where they are known to be most likely to burn; but they did not provide absolute protection. Even within reserves, at a given distance from roads, there were more deforestation fires in regions with high human impact than in those with low impact. The effect of El Niño on deforestation fires was greatest outside of reserves and near roads. Indigenous reserves, limited-use reserves, and fully protected reserves all had fewer fires than outside areas and did not appear to differ in their effectiveness.
Taking time, regional factors, and climate into account, our results show that reserves are an effective tool for curbing destructive burning in the Amazon.
The Brazilian Amazon is currently experiencing the world's highest absolute rate of forest destruction and is likely to suffer even greater degradation in the future because of government plans to invest $40 billion from 2000 to 2007 in dozens of major new highways and infrastructure projects. We developed two computer models that integrate spatial data on deforestation, logging, mining, highways and roads, navigable rivers, vulnerability to wildfires, protected areas, and existing and planned infrastructure projects, in an effort to predict the condition of Brazilian Amazonian forests by the year 2020. Both models suggest that the region's forests will be drastically altered by current development schemes and land-use trends over the next 20 years.
Amazon deforestation has been measured by remote sensing for three decades. In comparison, selective logging has been mostly invisible to satellites. We developed a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote-sensing analysis of selective logging in the top five timber-producing states of the Brazilian Amazon. Logged areas ranged from 12,075 to 19,823 square kilometers per year (+/-14%) between 1999 and 2002, equivalent to 60 to 123% of previously reported deforestation area. Up to 1200 square kilometers per year of logging were observed on conservation lands. Each year, 27 million to 50 million cubic meters of wood were extracted, and a gross flux of approximately 0.1 billion metric tons of carbon was destined for release to the atmosphere by logging.
Expansion of the cattle and soy industries in the Amazon basin has increased deforestation rates and will soon push all-weather highways into the region's core. In the face of this growing pressure, a comprehensive conservation strategy for the Amazon basin should protect its watersheds, the full range of species and ecosystem diversity, and the stability of regional climates. Here we report that protected areas in the Amazon basin--the central feature of prevailing conservation approaches--are an important but insufficient component of this strategy, based on policy-sensitive simulations of future deforestation. By 2050, current trends in agricultural expansion will eliminate a total of 40% of Amazon forests, including at least two-thirds of the forest cover of six major watersheds and 12 ecoregions, releasing 32 +/- 8 Pg of carbon to the atmosphere. One-quarter of the 382 mammalian species examined will lose more than 40% of the forest within their Amazon ranges. Although an expanded and enforced network of protected areas could avoid as much as one-third of this projected forest loss, conservation on private lands is also essential. Expanding market pressures for sound land management and prevention of forest clearing on lands unsuitable for agriculture are critical ingredients of a strategy for comprehensive conservation.
Tropical forests are beleaguered by an array of threats driven by different scales of anthropogenic perturbations, which vary in the degree to which they can be detected by remote sensing. The extent of different patterns of cryptic disturbance often far exceeds the total area deforested, as shown by two recent studies on selective logging in Amazonia. Here, we discuss different forms of disturbance in Amazonian forests and question how much of the apparently intact forest in this region remains relatively undisturbed.
The long-term viability of a forest industry in the Amazon region of Brazil depends on the maintenance of adequate timber volume and growth in healthy forests. Using extensive high-resolution satellite analyses, we studied the forest damage caused by recent logging operations and the likelihood that logged forests would be cleared within 4 years after timber harvest. Across 2,030,637 km² of the Brazilian Amazon from 1999 to 2004, at least 76% of all harvest practices resulted in high levels of canopy damage sufficient to leave forests susceptible to drought and fire. We found that 16 ± 1% of selectively logged areas were deforested within 1 year of logging, with a subsequent annual deforestation rate of 5.4% for 4 years after timber harvests. Nearly all logging occurred within 25 km of main roads, and within that area, the probability of deforestation for a logged forest was up to four times greater than for unlogged forests. In combination, our results show that logging in the Brazilian Amazon is dominated by highly damaging operations, often followed rapidly by deforestation decades before forests can recover sufficiently to produce timber for a second harvest. Under the management regimes in effect at the time of our study in the Brazilian Amazon, selective logging would not be sustained.
• Brazil
• forest disturbance
• remote sensing
• selective logging
• tropical forest
Conservation scientists generally agree that many types of protected areas will be needed to protect tropical forests. But little is known of the comparative performance of inhabited and uninhabited reserves in slowing the most extreme form of forest disturbance: conversion to agriculture. We used satellite-based maps of land cover and fire occurrence in the Brazilian Amazon to compare the performance of large (> 10,000 ha) uninhabited (parks) and inhabited (indigenous lands, extractive reserves, and national forests) reserves. Reserves significantly reduced both deforestation and fire. Deforestation was 1.7 (extractive reserves) to 20 (parks) times higher along the outside versus the inside of the reserve perimeters and fire occurrence was 4 (indigenous lands) to 9 (national forests) times higher. No strong difference in the inhibition of deforestation (p = 0. 11) or fire (p = 0.34) was found between parks and indigenous lands. However, uninhabited reserves tended to be located away from areas of high deforestation and burning rates. In contrast, indigenous lands were often created in response to frontier expansion, and many prevented deforestation completely despite high rates of deforestation along their boundaries. The inhibitory effect of indigenous lands on deforestation was strong after centuries of contact with the national society and was not correlated with indigenous population density. Indigenous lands occupy one-fifth of the Brazilian Amazon-five times the area under protection in parks--and are currently the most important barrier to Amazon deforestation. As the protected-area network expands from 36% to 41% of the Brazilian Amazon over the coming years, the greatest challenge will be successful reserve implementation in high-risk areas of frontier expansion as indigenous lands are strengthened. This success will depend on a broad base of political support.
Brazil's BR-319 Highway linked Manaus, in the state of Amazonas, to Porto Velho, Rondônia, until it became impassable in 1988. Now it is proposed for reconstruction and paving, which would facilitate migration from the "Arc of Deforestation" in the southern part of the Amazon region to new frontiers farther north. The purpose of the highway, which is to facilitate transport to São Paulo of products from factories in the Manaus Free Trade Zone, would be better served by sending the containers by ship to the port of Santos. The lack of a land connection to Manaus currently represents a significant barrier to migration to central and northern Amazonia. Discourse regarding the highway systematically overestimates the highway's benefits and underestimates its impacts. A variety of changes would be needed prior to paving the highway if these potential impacts are to be attenuated. These include zoning, reserve creation, and increased governance in various forms, including deforestation licensing and control programs. More fundamental changes are also needed, especially the abandonment of the long-standing tradition in Brazil of granting squatters' rights to those who invade public land. Organizing Amazonian occupation in such a way that road construction and improvement cease to lead to explosive and uncontrolled deforestation should be a prerequisite for approval of the BR-319 and other road projects for which major impacts are expected. These projects could provide the impetus that is needed to achieve the transition away from appropriation of public land by both small squatters and by grileiros (large-scale illegal claimants). A delay in reconstructing the highway is advisable until appropriate changes can be effected.
Forest fragmentation is considered a greater threat to vertebrates than to tree communities because individual trees are typically long-lived and require only small areas for survival. Here we show that forest fragmentation provokes surprisingly rapid and profound alterations in Amazonian tree-community composition. Results were derived from a 22-year study of exceptionally diverse tree communities in 40 1-ha plots in fragmented and intact forests, which were sampled repeatedly before and after fragment isolation. Within these plots, trajectories of change in abundance were assessed for 267 genera and 1,162 tree species. Abrupt shifts in floristic composition were driven by sharply accelerated tree mortality and recruitment within ≈100 m of fragment margins, causing rapid species turnover and population declines or local extinctions of many large-seeded, slow-growing, and old-growth taxa; a striking increase in a smaller set of disturbance-adapted and abiotically dispersed species; and significant shifts in tree size distributions. Even among old-growth trees, species composition in fragments is being restructured substantially, with subcanopy species that rely on animal seed-dispersers and have obligate outbreeding being the most strongly disadvantaged. These diverse changes in tree communities are likely to have wide-ranging impacts on forest architecture, canopy-gap dynamics, plant–animal interactions, and forest carbon storage.
• edge effects
• floristic composition
• forest dynamics
• habitat fragmentation
• tree communities
Brazil's Cuiabá-Santarém (BR-163) Highway provides a valuable example of ways in which decision-making procedures for infrastructure projects in tropical forest areas need to be reformulated in order to guarantee that environmental concerns are properly weighed. BR-163, which is slated to be paved as an export corridor for soybeans via the Amazon River, traverses an area that is largely outside of Brazilian government control. A climate of generalized lawlessness and impunity prevails, and matters related to environment and to land tenure are especially unregulated. Deforestation and illegal logging have accelerated in anticipation of highway paving. Paving would further speed forest loss in the area, as well as stimulate migration of land thieves (grileiros) to other frontiers. An argument is made that the highway should not be reconstructed and paved until after a state of law has been established and it has been independently certified that sufficient governance prevails to secure protected areas and enforce environmental legislation. A waiting period is needed after this is achieved before proceeding with the highway paving. Above all, the logical sequence of steps must be followed, whereby environmental costs are assessed, reported, and weighed prior to making de facto decisions on implementation of infrastructure projects. Deviation from this logical sequence is a common occurrence in many parts of the world, especially in tropical areas.
Tropical moist forests contain the majority of terrestrial species. Human actions destroy between 1 and 2 million km² of such forests per decade, with concomitant carbon release into the atmosphere. Within these forests, protected areas are the principle defense against forest loss and species extinctions. Four regions—the Amazon, Congo, South American Atlantic Coast, and West Africa—once constituted about half the world's tropical moist forest. We measure forest cover at progressively larger distances inside and outside of protected areas within these four regions, using datasets on protected areas and land-cover. We find important geographical differences. In the Amazon and Congo, protected areas are generally large and retain high levels of forest cover, as do their surroundings. These areas are protected de facto by being inaccessible and will likely remain protected if they continue to be so. Deciding whether they are also protected de jure—that is, whether effective laws also protect them—is statistically difficult, for there are few controls. In contrast, protected areas in the Atlantic Coast forest and West Africa show sharp boundaries in forest cover at their edges. This effective protection of forest cover is partially offset by their very small size: little area is deep inside protected area boundaries. Lands outside protected areas in the Atlantic Coast forest are unusually fragmented. Finally, we ask whether global databases on protected areas are biased toward highly protected areas and ignore “paper parks.” Analysis of a Brazilian database does not support this presumption.
• biodiversity
• tropical forest
• conservation
• deforestation
Landsat images were used to identify, map and quantify roads in the Amazon region. The mapping was carried out in the Central-West region of the State of Pará, between 1985 and 2001. A total of 25 196 km of roads were mapped, including 20 769 km of unofficial roads—roads built without governmental incentives. The average growth rate for unofficial roads almost doubled in 10 years, going from 9.85 km/10 000 km 2 per year, between 1990 and 1995, to 19.25 km/10 000 km 2 per year between 1996 and 2001. Growth rate was most significant in the regions of São Félix do Xingu, Santarém and Novo Progresso with average rates higher than 40 km/10 000 km 2 per year between 1996 and 2001. The methodology proposed can improve monitoring in the Brazilian Amazon, by prioritising areas for law enforcement, and land titling and identifying priority regions for creating protected areas.
Subsistence hunting affects vast tracts of tropical wilderness that otherwise remain structurally unaltered, yet distinguishing hunted from nonhunted tropical forests presents a difficult problem because this diffuse form of resource extraction leaves few visible signs of its occurrence. I used a standardized series of line-transect censuses conducted over a 10-year period to examine the effects of subsistence game harvest on the structure of vertebrate communities in 25 Amazonian forest sites subjected to varying levels of hunting pressure. Crude vertebrate biomass, which was highly correlated with hunting pressure, gradually declined from nearly 1200 kg km⁻² at nonhunted sites to less than 200 kg km⁻² at heavily hunted sites. Hunting had a negative effect on the total biomass and relative abundance of vertebrate species in different size classes at these forest sites, but it did not affect their overall density. In particular, persistent hunting markedly reduced the density of large-bodied game species (>5 kg), which contributed a large proportion of the overall community biomass at nonhunted sites (65–78%) and lightly hunted sites (55–71%). Nutrient-rich floodplain forests contained a consistently greater game biomass than nutrient-poor unflooded forests, once I controlled for the effects of hunting pressure. Conservative estimates of game yields indicate that as many as 23.5 million game vertebrates, equivalent to 89,224 tons of bushmeat with a market value of US$190.7 million, are consumed each year by the rural population of Brazilian Amazonia, which illustrates the enormous socioeconomic value of game resources in the region. My cross-site comparison documents the staggering effect of subsistence hunters on tropical forest vertebrate communities and highlights the importance of considering forest types and forest productivity in game management programs.
Recognizing the importance of preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services, human society has established extensive protected area networks to conserve these resources in recent decades. Are protected areas working as expected? Empirical coarse-scale assessments of this question across large regions, or even globally, tend to answer “yes”, while fine-scale studies of individual protected areas often and repeatedly answer “no”. We conducted a first fine-scale analysis of Brazil’s extensive Amazonian protected area network (1.8 million km2) and have quantitatively estimated conservation effectiveness in light of changing human development pressures in the surrounding landscape. The overall network maintained intact forest cover for 98.6% of protected forest lands, largely agreeing with previous coarse-scale studies. However, detailed examination of 474 individual protected areas unveils a broad range of efficacy. Many protected areas (544,800 km2) experience default protection simply due to their remoteness. Many others (396,100 km2) have provided highly effective protection in the face of substantial human development pressure. Conversely, 12% (38) of protected areas have failed to protect the 27,300 km2 that they encompass, and another 7% (23) provide only marginal protection of 37,500 km2. Comprehensive landscape assessments of protected area networks, with frequent monitoring at scales matching the patterns of human-caused disturbances, are necessary to ensure the conservation effectiveness and long term survival of protected areas in rapidly changing landscapes. The methods presented here are globally adaptable to all forested protected areas.
Deforestation maps derived from Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner
(MSS) and ThematicMapper (TM) imagery were used to analyse spatial patterns
of deforestation in the 1970s and the 1991–1997 period in Brazilian Legal
Amazônia. Nearly 90% of the deforestation has occurred within 100 km from
major roads established under federal development programmes. Clearings larger
than 50 ha and 200 ha accounted, respectively, for 74% and 50% of the total
deforestation in the 1991–1997 period. Results show that more intense deforestation
has been concentrated over some regions, leading to the continuous enlargement
of forest clearings and contributing to aggravate deforestation impacts in
such areas.
The state of Pará (1,248,042 km2), in eastern Amazônia, produces 65% of Brazil’s roundwood. Logging is now spreading across this state in an unplanned and unregulated fashion. Using a geographic information system (GIS), we combined and analyzed spatial information on forest cover, legal land classification, log processing industries, biodiversity, and infrastructure for the entire state. We first used this GIS, in combination with economic data, to analyze the spread of logging activities in Pará. We found that in the mid-1990s, the potential already existed (in economic terms) to harvest timber from 80% of Pará’s forested lands: 21% of Pará’s forest was accessible for the harvest of all commercial species, including those of low value; an additional 30% was accessible for logging a select group of medium-value species; and a final 29% of the state’s forest was accessible for the logging of mahogany, a high-value species. Although 29% of Pará’s lands are legally protected from logging, protection is weak: almost three-quarters of these “protected” lands fall within the zone in which timber can now be profitably harvested. We also used the GIS to develop a rationale for zoning where logging might be permitted, as well as prohibited, in Pará. First, we noted that 19% of the state contained lands without timber (12% deforested, 6.3% nonforest vegetation types, and 0.7% water). The land that we designate for logging, based both on economic and conservation considerations, would be approximately 32% (400,000 km2) of the state. This would include areas where logging is already underway (24%), production reserves and buffer areas (3%), and remote areas with no conservation restrictions (5%). We propose that the remaining area (49%, or 611,540 km2) be protected from logging, at least for the time being. These lands include forested areas where logging is already “officially” prohibited (28% of Pará) as well as nonprotected areas with a high conservation priority (21%) (i.e., areas that are especially rich in biodiversity).
Zonación de la Extracción de Madera en la Amazonia Brasileña
El estado de Pará (1,248,042 km2), en el este de la amazonia produce 65% de la madera redonda del Brazil. La tala se esta dispersando actualmente a lo largo de este estado sin planificación ni regulación. Usando un Sistema de Información Georgráfico (GIS), combinamous y analizamos información espacial de cobertura forestal, clasificación legal de la tierra, industrias procesadoras de troncos, biodiversidad e infraestructura para la totalidad del estado. Primero utilizamos este GIS en combinación con datos económicos para analizar la dispersión de las actividades de tala en Pará. Encontramos que a mediados de los 90’s el potencial ya existía (en terminos económicos) para cosechar madera en 80% de las tierras forestales de Pará: 21% del bosque de Pará era accesible para la cosecha de todas las especies comerciales, incluyendo aquellas de bajo valor; un adicional 30% era accesible para tala de un grupo selecto de especies de mediano valor y un final 29% del bosque estatal era accesible para la tala de cahoba-especie de alto valor comercial. Aunque un 29% de las tierras de Pará estan legalmente protegidas contra la tala, la protección es débil; casi tres cuartas partes de estas tierras “protegidas” se encuentran de la zona en que la madera puede ser ahora cosechada de manera rentable. También utilizamos GIS para desarrollar los fundamentos para una zonación donde la tala podría ser permitida, así como prohibida, en Pará. Primero, notamos que 19% del estado contiene tierras sin madera (12% deforestado, 6.3% tipos de vegetación no forestal y 0.7% es agua). La tierra que asignamos para tala, en base a consideraciones tanto económicas como de conservación, sería de aproximadamente 32% (400,000 km2) del estado. Esto incluye áreas donde la tala se encuentra actualmente en camino (24%), áreas de producción de reserva y áreas amortiguadoras (3%) y áreas remotas sin restricciones de conservación (5%). Proponemos que el área restante (49% ó 611,540 km2) sea protegida de la tala, al menos por un tiempo inmediato. Estas tierras incluyen áreas boscosas donde la tala es actualmente prohibida “oficialmente” (28% de Pará). Asi como áreas no protegidas con un alta priridad de conservación (21%) (i.e. áreas que son especialmente ricas en biodiversidad).
Protected areas are one of the cornerstones for conserving the world's re-maining biodiversity, most of which occurs in tropical forests. We use multiple sources of satellite data to estimate the extent of forest habitat and loss over the last 20 years within and surrounding 198 of the most highly protected areas (IUCN status 1 and 2) located throughout the world's tropical forests. In the early 1980s, surrounding habitat in the 50-km unprotected or less highly protected ''buffers'' enhanced the protected areas' effective size and their capacity to conserve richness of forest-obligate species above the hypothetical case of complete isolation. However, in nearly 70% of the surrounding buffers, the area of forest habitat declined during the last 20 years, while 25% experienced declines within their administrative boundaries. The loss of habitat occurred in all tropical regions, but protected areas in South and Southeast Asia were most severely affected because of rela-tively low surrounding forest habitat in the early 1980s and high subsequent loss, particularly in dry tropical forests. The future ability of protected areas to maintain current species richness depends on integrating reserve management within the land use dynamics of their larger regional settings.
To truly understand the current status of tropical diversity and to forecast future trends, we need to increase emphasis on the study of biodiversity in rural landscapes that are actively managed or modified by people. We present an integrated landscape approach to promote research in human-modified landscapes that includes the effects of landscape structure and dynamics on conservation of biodiversity, provision of ecosystem services, and sustainability of rural livelihoods. We propose research priorities encompassing three major areas: biodiversity, human–environment interactions, and restoration ecology. We highlight key areas where we lack knowledge and where additional understanding is most urgent for promoting conservation and sustaining rural livelihoods. Finally, we recommend participatory and multidisciplinary approaches in research and management. Lasting conservation efforts demand new alliances among conservation biologists, agroecologists, agronomists, farmers, indigenous peoples, rural social movements, foresters, social scientists, and land managers to collaborate in research, co-design conservation programs and policies, and manage human-modified landscapes in ways that enhance biodiversity conservation and promote sustainable livelihoods.
Mahogany, Swietenia macrophylla King, is by far the most valuable timber species in the Brazilian Amazon: 1 m³ of export-quality sawn wood was valued at about $700 in the early 1990s. We studied the structure and economy of the mahogany companies operating in southern Pará State, the major mahogany processing center in the Brazilian Amazon. Of the 86 mills in operation in this region, 24 specialized in mahogany and were responsible for processing 90% of the mahogany harvest. Many of these mahogany mills (60%) were established in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, most (91%) were vertically integrated—participating in forest logging, log transport, mill processing, and marketing.
We propose a new spectral index, the Normalized Difference Fraction Index (NDFI), for enhanced detection of forest canopy damage caused by selective logging activities and associated forest fires. The NDFI synthesizes information from several component fraction images derived from spectral mixture models. Interpretation of the NDFI data is facilitated by a contextual classification algorithm (CCA) that enables accurate mapping of logging and fire-derived canopy damages. The CCA utilizes detected log landings, which are the spatial signature of selective logging, as starting locations for searching the NDFI image for canopy damage. This process separates canopy changes due to logging and associated forest fires from those caused by other natural disturbances. These methods were tested in the Sinop region, in the Southern Brazilian Amazon. Forest transect inventories, conducted along a gradient of degraded forests, were used to evaluated the performance of the NDFI. The NDFI was more sensitive to canopy damage than any individual fraction and is shown to have the potential for further sub-classification of degradation levels in forest environments. Map accuracy of forest canopy damage using the CCA classifier, assessed with aerial videography images, was 94%. The proposed NDFI-CCA classifier approach can be fully automated and, therefore, holds great promise as a forest monitoring tool in tropical forests.
Fire poses the greatest threat to the forests of Amazônia. The magnitude of this threat is amplified by three positive feedback loops that drive the expansion of forest fire in the region: (1) Fire promotes drought, and therefore more fire, by releasing smoke into the atmosphere, thus reducing rainfall. Fire-assisted conversion of forests to pastures may also promote drought by increasing albedo and decreasing water vapor flux to the atmosphere, further inhibiting rainfall. (2) Fire increases the susceptibility of forests to recurrent burning by killing trees, thereby allowing sunlight to penetrate the forest interior, and increasing the fuel load on the forest floor. (3) Finally, fires also self-perpetuate by burning agricultural and forestry systems, discouraging landholders from making those fire-sensitive investments in their land that would allow them to move beyond their dependence upon fire as a management tool.
The impacts of potential linear barriers such as roads, highways, and power lines on rainforest fauna are poorly understood. In the central Brazilian Amazon, we compared the frequency of local movements (≤300 m long) of understory birds within intact forest and across a 30- to 40-m-wide road over a 2-year period. Rainforest had regenerated along some road verges, to the extent that a nearly complete canopy was formed in some areas, so we also assessed whether this facilitated bird movement. Movement data were determined from 1212 recaptures of 3681 netted birds at six study sites. The road significantly inhibited total bird movement across roads at five of the six sites. Bird foraging guilds varied in their responses to the road and different ages of regrowth. Movements of frugivorous and edge and gap species were not inhibited at any site, whereas most forest-dependent insectivores (mixed-species flocks, terrestrial species, and army-ant followers) had markedly inhibited road-crossing movements, except at sites with extensive regrowth. Solitary understory species were especially vulnerable, rarely crossing even roads overgrown by tall regrowth. For sensitive species, road-crossing movements were inhibited because individuals tended to avoid both edge-affected habitat near the road and the road clearing itself. Our results suggest that even narrow roads with low traffic volumes can reduce local movements of many insectivorous birds in Amazonia.
Linear infrastructure such as roads, highways, power lines and gas lines are omnipresent features of human activity and are rapidly expanding in the tropics. Tropical species are especially vulnerable to such infrastructure because they include many ecological specialists that avoid even narrow (<30-m wide) clearings and forest edges, as well as other species that are susceptible to road kill, predation or hunting by humans near roads. In addition, roads have a major role in opening up forested tropical regions to destructive colonization and exploitation. Here, we synthesize existing research on the impacts of roads and other linear clearings on tropical rainforests, and assert that such impacts are often qualitatively and quantitatively different in tropical forests than in other ecosystems. We also highlight practical measures to reduce the negative impacts of roads and other linear infrastructure on tropical species.
Collateral impacts of LULUCF projects, especially those concerning social and environmental aspects, have been recognised as important by the Marrakech Accords. The same applies to the necessity of assessing and, if possible, of quantifying the magnitude of these impacts. This article aims to define, clarify and structure the relevant social, economic and environmental issues to be addressed and to give examples of indicators that ought to be included in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring, and ex post evaluation of LULUCF projects. This is being done by providing a conceptual framework for the assessment of the sustainability of such projects that can be used as a checklist when dealing with concrete projects, and that in principle is applicable to both Annex I and non-Annex I countries. Finally, a set of recommendations is provided to further develop and promote the proposed framework.
Forest fires are growing in size and frequency across the tropics. Continually eroding fragmented forest edges, they are unintended ecological disturbances that transcend deforestation to degrade vast regions of standing forest, diminishing ecosystem services and the economic potential of these natural resources. Affecting the health of millions, net forest fire emissions may have released carbon equivalent to 41% of worldwide fossil fuel use in 1997-98. Episodically more severe during El Niño events, pan-tropical forest fires will increase as more damaged, less fire-resistant, forests cover the landscape. Here I discuss the current state of tropical fire science and make recommendations for advancement.
The centrality of protected areas in biodiversity conservation has not changed over the past three decades, but we now know that biodiversity conservation represents a much more complex and dynamic picture than was once thought. In contrast to the earlier primarily aesthetic motivation (and still valid in its own right), the role of protected areas in biodiversity conservation is now widely accepted. Internationally, their importance has been recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity and by the creation of intergovernmental funding agencies such as the Global Environmental Facility. As I discuss here, the rate of creation of new protected areas has increased rapidly to meet the need for a protected representative set of the ecosystems of the world. But that is only the start of the task.
The feasibility of logging in the Pará Calha Norte region of the Brazilian Amazon Mapping Forestry
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Mapoteca Digital Versão 04, adaptada a Base Cartográfica Integrada do Brasil ao Milionésimo Digital – bCIMd
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