Marcos Pedlowski

Farming in Rondônia

Abstract We study economic and environmental aspects of farming practices of a sample of 91 family farms around the city of Ouro Preto, in Brazils state of Rondonia, in western Amazonia, from four overlapping perspectives. First, we estimate production functions for six activities on multiproduct farms, finding evidence of increasing returns to scale in cattle activity and possible evidence of nonindependence of profit and utility maximization in severalsubsistence crops. Second, we examine determinants of overall current farm revenue and wealth, finding possible evidence of overuse of land and underinvestment in cattle, decapitalization of farms over time, overpopulation, and trade-off between children and capital accumulation. Third, we study interactions between burning strategies, diversification of farm activities, locational choice, length of tenure on a farm, and soil quality. Longer tenure on a farm and large area in perenial crops appear to reduce the frequency of burning, while greater area in annual crops increases the frequency. Larger pasture area tends to reduce the frequency of burning below an annual periodicity. Less frequent burning appears to be accompanied by greater diversification of farm income sources. Fourth, we study the determinants of deforestation on lots, finding a negative effect of clearance costs and productivity of land and in cultivation on the clearance of new land. However, the evidence for the relationship between cattle activity and deforestation is mixed: a larger number of cattle increases the absolute amount of land deforested on a lot, but a higher proportion of income from cattle increases the ratio of cultivated land to pasture on a farm. There is also evidence of a trade-off between land quality and the quantity of land deforested.

Patterns and impacts of deforestation in Rondônia, Brazil

Abstract Land development in the Brazilian Amazon has gone through phases of rubber extraction, agricultural development, immigration, road expansion, and promotion of large enterprises in cattle ranching, timber extraction and mining. Land development patterns in the western state of Rondonia provide a place to focus on rapid development and its effects. The expanding land-use activities in Rondonia have resulted in an increase in the human population and the rate of deforestation so that by 1993 about 25% of the forest area had been cleared. In Rondonia the main activities responsible for the deforestation are small farmers, cattle ranchers, miners and loggers. The implications of the Rondonia Natural Resource Management Project (PLANAFLORO), which is just now being implemented, are critical to the future of the environment and economy of the region.

Conservation units: a new deforestation frontier in the Amazonian state of Rondônia, Brazil

Over the past several decades, the Brazilian State of Rondonia has been the destination of many rural migrants drawn from Brazils 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 Rondonia in 1978 was 4200 km 2 . In 1988, the area increased to 30 000 km 2 , in 1998 to 53 300 km 2 and by the year 2003, a total of 67 764 km 2 of Rondonia was deforested. In response to the high rate of deforestation observed in Rondonia 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 Rondonia. 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 Rondonia 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 Rondonias 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 Rondonia must be developed and implemented jointly by all stakeholders through the creation of partnerships between local communities, non-governmental organizations and government agencies.

Multi-temporal assessment of selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon using Landsat data

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.

Assessment of forest disturbances by selective logging and forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon using Landsat data

The rapid environmental changes occurring in the Brazilian Amazon due to widespread deforestation have attracted the attention of the scientific community for several decades. A topic of particular interest involves the assessment of the combined impacts of selective logging and forest fires. Forest disturbances by selective logging and forest fires may vary in scale, from local to global changes, mostly related to the increase of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Selective logging activities and forest fires have been reported by several studies as important agents of land-use and land-cover changes. Previous studies have focused on selective logging, but forest fires on a large scale in tropical regions have yet to be properly addressed. This study involved a more comprehensive investigation of temporal and basin-wide changes of forest disturbances by selective logging and forest fires using remotely sensed data acquired in 1992, 1996, and 1999. Landsat imagery and remote-sensing techniques for detecting burned forests and estimating forest canopy cover were applied. We also conducted rigorous ground measurements and observations to validate remote-sensing techniques and to assess canopy-cover impacts by selective logging and forest fires in three different states in the Brazilian Amazon. The results of this study showed a substantial increase in total forested areas impacted by selective logging and forest fires from approximately 11,800 to 35,600 km2 in 1992 and 1999, respectively. Selective logging was responsible for 60.4% of this forest disturbance in the studied period. Approximately 33% and 7% of forest disturbances detected in the same period were due to impacts of forest fires only and selective logging and forest fires combined, respectively. Most of the degraded forests (∼90%) were detected in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. Our estimates indicated that approximately 5467, 7618, and 17437 km2 were new areas of selective logging and/or forest fires in 1992, 1996, and 1999, respectively. Protected areas seemed to be very effective in constraining these types of forest degradation. Approximately 2.4% and 1.3% of the total detected selectively logged and burned forests, respectively, were geographically located within protected areas. We observed, however, an increasing trend for these anthropogenic activities to occur within the limits of protected areas from 1992 to 1999. Although forest fires impacted the least area of tropical forests in the study region, new areas of burned forests detected in 1996 and 1999 were responsible for the greatest impact on canopy cover, with an estimated canopy loss of 18.8% when compared to undisturbed forests. Selective logging and forest fires combined impacted even more those forest canopies, with an estimated canopy loss of 27.5%. Selectively logged forest only showed the least impact on canopy cover, with an estimated canopy loss of 5%. Finally, we observed that forest canopy cover impacted by selective logging activities can recover faster (up to 3 years) from impact when compared to those forests disturbed by fires (up to 5 years) in the Amazon region.

A criação de áreas protegidas e os limites da conservação ambiental em Rondônia

Este artigo analisa o processo de criacao e protecao de unidades de conservacao no Estado de Rondonia. Este processo tem tido o apoio financeiro e orientacao programatica do Banco Mundial atraves de diferentes programas de desenvolvimento regional desde o inicio dos anos 80. A partir da discussao sobre o papel fundamental das unidades de conservacao na preservacao dos ecossistemas Amazonicos, o artigo realiza uma analise historica do processo de criacao destas unidades no Estado de Rondonia. A partir desta analise e feita uma revisao das principais limitacoes, principalmente as institucionais e de capital social, que acabam comprometendo os esforcos de conservacao ambiental como os desenvolvidos em Rondonia. Uma discussao especifica e feita sobre o persistente papel da construcao de estradas como ferramenta de desenvolvimento regional, e de seu impacto sobre a integridade das unidades de conservacao e reservas extrativas e indigenas. O artigo conclui que grandes investimentos na reestruturacao de orgaos governamentais, tomados isoladamente, nao garantem a efetiva protecao dos ecossistemas contidos nas unidades de conservacao. A sugestao apresentada para melhorar a performance dos sistemas de unidades de conservacao e o envolvimento das comunidades locais e da sociedade civil organizada em todas as fases e niveis do processo de conservacao ambiental.

Spatiotemporal mapping of soybean plantations in Rondônia, Western Brazilian Amazon

Although soybean production has been increasing in the state of Rondonia in the last decade, soybean planted area has been estimated indirectly using secondary datasets, which has limited understanding of its spatiotemporal distribution patterns. This study aimed to map and analyze spatial patterns of soybean expansion in Rondonia. We developed a classification technique based on Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) derived from Landsat imagery and Decision Tree Classification to detect and map soybean plantations in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2014. The soybean classification map showed 93% global accuracy, 23% omission and 0% of commission errors for soybean crop fields. The greatest increases of soybean cropped area in the state of Rondonia were observed between 2000-2005 and 2005-2010 time-periods (33,239 ha and 59,628 ha, respectively), mostly located in Southern Rondonia. The expansion of soybean areas to Northern Rondonia (25,627 ha) has mostly occurred in the 2010-2014 time period. We estimate that 95.4% of all newly created soybean plantations, detected by 2014, were established on lands deforested nine or more years earlier. We concluded that the incursion of soybean plantations on lands deforested for other land uses (e.g. ranching) is contributing to their displacement (pastures) from older colonization zones toward more remote frontier areas of the Amazon, exacerbating new deforestation there.

Pattern to Process in the Amazon Region

Human beings are altering land cover at rates and scales that are unprecedented in human history (NRC 2002), rivaling glacial/interglacial transitions in magnitude (NAS 2000). Nowhere are human-mediated changes in land cover affecting global processes more than in the tropics. Understanding the causes and effects of regional land cover and land use change (LCLUC) is one of the grand challenges in the environmental sciences (NAS 2000). Further refinement in the estimates of tropical forest conversion will also be important for balancing the global carbon budget, and reconciling flux estimates from models (Houghton et al., 2000) and atmospheric measurements (Ciais et al., 1995a, 1995b).

Avaliação do desmatamento no estado de Rondônia entre 2001 e 2011

The goal of this study was to assess the accuracy of deforestation maps produced by the National Institute for Spatial Research (INPE) and the Rondonia State Secretariat of Environmental Development (SEDAM) for the state of Rondonia between 2001 and 2011. Our results show that the deforestation mappings conducted by SEDAM and PRODES-INPE present similar Kappa coefficients, which were estimated at 0.89 and 0.87, respectively. The deforestation datasets prepared by PRODES and SEDAM show a decrease in deforestation rates in Rondonia state in the study period. However, there was a significant increase in illegal deforestation (approximately 400% within the protected areas) in this period. Based on the deforestation trend observed in the past decade, we can affirm that forests inside protected areas are the main targets for deforestation in Rondonia state.

Avaliação do Desmatamento no Estado de Rondônia entre 2001 e 2011 / Deforestation Assessment in the State of Rondônia between 2001 and 2011

The goal of this study was to assess the accuracy of deforestation maps produced by the National Institute for Spatial Research (INPE) and the Rondonia State Secretariat of Environmental Development (SEDAM) for the state of Rondonia between 2001 and 2011. Our results show that the deforestation mappings conducted by SEDAM and PRODES-INPE present similar Kappa coefficients, which were estimated at 0.89 and 0.87, respectively. The deforestation datasets prepared by PRODES and SEDAM show a decrease in deforestation rates in Rondonia state in the study period. However, there was a significant increase in illegal deforestation (approximately 400% within the protected areas) in this period. Based on the deforestation trend observed in the past decade, we can affirm that forests inside protected areas are the main targets for deforestation in Rondonia state.