E. C. C. Fidalgo

Mapeamento do uso e da cobertura atual da terra para indicação de áreas disponíveis para reservas legais: estudo em nove municípios da região Amazônica

RESUMO - O presente trabalho foi realizado com o objetivo de indicar as areas disponiveis para manutencao de reserva legal, com a finalidade de fornecer subsidios a discussao sobre a extensao das reservas legais na Amazonia brasileira. A metodologia empregada foi dividida em duas etapas: a primeira envolveu a delimitacao das areas originais de ocorrencia de formacoes florestais e de cerrado e a identificacao das areas sobre as quais recai a obrigatoriedade de manutencao de reserva legal; a segunda envolveu a identificacao dos remanescentes vegetais disponiveis para manutencao de reservas legais, bem como das areas que foram alteradas, realizada a partir do mapeamento do uso e da cobertura atual das terras, utilizando tecnicas de processamento digital de imagens e geoprocessamento. O estudo foi aplicado em nove municipios da Amazonia Oriental (quatro municipios no Para e cinco no Maranhao). Os resultados obtidos com base nas imagens TM Landsat do ano de 1999 mostram que todos os municipios estudados apresentaram valores inferiores a 80% de florestas remanescentes. Os municipios do Para apresentaram sua area de remanescentes florestais um pouco superior a 60%, enquanto os do Maranhao apresentaram valores mais baixos, inferiores a 50%, chegando a 6,46% em Itinga do Maranhao.

Monitoring land use changes around the indigenous lands of the Xingu basin in Mato Grosso, Brazil

Indigenous lands represent an efficient way to protect indigenous communities and environment in Brazil. However, these lands are also highly affected y the land use changes occuring in its surroundings. We quantified the land use changes in the Xingu basin based on MODIS EVI data between 2000 and 2006. We estimated the deforested area inside and outside the indigenous lands, the crop expansion and intensification around the protected areas. Our results indicate that, even if indigenous lands are efficient to limit deforestation (97.5% of deforestation is outside the indigenous lands), crop expansion and intensification (double crop systems) are increasing rapidly, what may imply pollution of headwaters of the Xingu river which crosses the protected area.

Soil and Water Management for Ecosystem Services Provision in Agricultural Landscapes: The Challenge of Monitoring

Soil and water conservation management includes practices that help to preserve the quality of soil, water, and biodiversity, to promote sustainable agriculture and to provide ecosystem services (ES). In the state of Rio de Janeiro, some agriculture conservation practices such as minimal tillage, crop rotation, agroforestry systems, rotational grazing, and fallow can contribute to value and provide ES and also increase productivity and income of the family farmers. However, it is necessary to identify the impacts of these practices on the provision of ES, and monitoring is an important means of analysis. This chapter presents a review of studies on the conservation management practices in the state of Rio de Janeiro and their impacts on ES. Moreover, it highlights aspects to be considered in monitoring of ecosystem service indicators. The main challenges of the monitoring approach include participatory efforts and multidisciplinary criteria used at appropriate scales in order to provide adequate and useful answers to society.

Multicriteria Site Prioritization for Land Rehabilitation in the Guapi-Macacu Watershed, Rio de Janeiro

Progressing land degradation is of increasing global concern because it deteriorates essential ecosystem features, functions, and services as observed in our study area in the highly fragmented Mata Atlântica biome, RJ, Brazil. The prioritization of sites for land rehabilitation is a frequent task for environmental managers and essential to develop urgently needed public policies. Hence, we present a GIS-based tool based on ecological principles for the selection of reforestation sites by integrating data on pasture degradation and landscape fragmentation. Thereby, the prioritized areas do not only represent opportunities for increasing forest cover and enhancing forest connectivity but also for reducing the area of degraded pastures. From our perspective, the inclusion of spatial information on degraded pastures is essential, since many of these areas have lost important ecological and economic function and should thus be prioritized for intervention. Data on degraded pastures and forest cover used in this study are derived from high- and medium-resolution satellite imagery. Other spatial data are derived from a digital elevation model (DEM) with 20 m resolution. The multicriteria analysis for the data integration was conducted using ESRI ArcGIS and the open-source software ILWIS.

Comparative study on the potential of agritourism in two Brazilian municipalities.

The knowledge acquired by studying different aspects that can influence agritourism provide for adequate guidelines to carry out this rural activity, leading to greater sustainability and higher chances of success. This study was developed to identify the more important aspects that can improve or limit agritourism and, accordingly, analyse the potential and the limitations for agritourism development in two municipalities of Southeast Brazil. The municipalities are Venda Nova do Imigrante in the state of Espirito Santo, where the agritourism is successfully consolidated and Cachoeiras de Macacu in Rio de Janeiro state, where it is not very significant. This comparison was based on secondary and primary data – the latter were collected during field trips in these municipalities and by getting in touch with representatives of institutions and other local stakeholders. The results showed that the main similarities between the municipalities, which promote agritourism, are environmental, historic and cultural aspects; the presence of family farming with diversified production; and small rural industries. The main differences are the aspects related to land use, tourism management and agritourism infrastructure. An aspect that limits the activity in both municipalities is the lack of specific norms and legislation to guide and organize agritourism.