The age of a large Brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa) is measured by radiocarbon dating, and a discussion is made about their importance in the Amazon rain-forest ecosystem.
Up to 80% of each private rural property in the Brazilian Amazon is protected by law through the Legal Reserve (LR) mechanism of the federal Forest Code, underlining the conservation importance of forests on private lands in one of the world´s most important biomes. However, our understanding of the discrepancies in levels of forest protection on private lands as obligated by the law versus what occurs in practice remains very poor. We assessed patterns of forest cover and legal compliance with the Forest Code in the 1.25 Mkm 2 Brazilian state of Pará, which has the highest deforestation rate in the Amazon. We evaluate the LR deficit and surplus patterns for different sized properties and across 144 municipalities, and found that the total LR surplus (12.6 Mha) was more than five times the total area of deficit (2.3 Mha). Yet, from the total surplus, only 11%can be legally deforested while the remaining 89% is already protected by law but can be used (sold or rented) to compensate for areas that are under deficit. Medium and large-scale properties make up most of the total LR deficit area, while agrarian reform settlements had comparatively large amounts of both compensation-only surplus and deforestable surplus. Most of the municipalities (77%) in the state could compensate their total deficit with surplus areas of LR in the same municipality, while the remainder can be compensate their deficit in one or more neighboring municipality, indicating compensation can always take place close to the source of the deficit. Maximising the environmental benefits of achieving Forest Code compliance requires measures that go beyond the existing legal framework, including interventions to avoid further deforestation in places where it is still legal, compensate in close proximity to areas with legal reserve deficit and promote local restoration on degraded lands.
ABSTRACT. Brazil will benefit if it gains control of its vast Amazonian timber resources. Without immediate planning, the fate of much of the Amazon will be decided by predatory and largely unregulated timber interests. Logging in the Amazon is a transient process of natural resource mining. Older logging frontiers are being exhausted of timber resources and will face severe wood shortages within 5 yr. The Brazilian government can avoid the continued repetition of this process in frontier areas by establishing a network of National Forests (Florestas Nacionais or Flonas) to stabilize the timber industry and simultaneously protect large tracts of forest. Flonas currently comprise less than 2% of the Brazilian Amazon (83,000 km 2 ). If all these forests were used for sustainable logging, they would provide less than 10% of the demand for Amazonian timber. To sustainably supply the present and near-future demand for timber, approximately 700,000 km 2 of the Amazon forest needs to be brought into well-managed production. Brazil's National Forest Program, launched in 2000, is designed to create at least 400,000 km 2 of new Flonas. Objective decision-making tools are needed to site these new national forests. We present here a method for optimally locating the needed Flonas that incorporates information on existing protected areas, current vegetation cover, areas of human occupation, and timber stocks. The method combines these data in a spatial database that makes it possible to model the economic potential of the region's various forests as a function of their accessibility and timber values while constraining model solutions for existing areas of protection or human occupation. Our results indicate that 1.15 x 10 6 km 2 of forests (23% of the Brazilian Amazon) could be established as Flonas in a manner that will promote sustainable forest management; these Flonas would also serve as buffer zones for fully protected areas such as parks and reserves.
A legislação brasileira não define quais das características das formações secundárias devem ser avaliadas para a classificação do seu estágio sucessional, se inicial, intermediário ou avançado, dificultando os procedimentos de licenciamento para supressão, manejo e conservação da vegetação nativa. Neste estudo, propõe-se um sistema de classificação do estágio sucessional da vegetação secundária, baseado em dados colhidos em três municípios do Pará e de revisão de literatura. Foram feitos inventários em 128 parcelas de 0,16 ha por sítio estudado e utilizados 18 descritores florístico-estruturais da vegetação. Parcelas dos três estágios foram submetidas à análise discriminante, que definiu os três estágios sucessionais com base em dezesseis medidas florístico-estruturais. Oito descritores apresentaram maior poder discriminatório destes três estágios sucessionais, sendo então selecionados para a elaboração do Sistema Capoeira Classe (CapClas), sistema composto por três equações que discriminam, com 70,3% de acurácia, os estágios sucessionais de uma determinada vegetação. O presente trabalho corrobora a afirmação inicial de que os três estágios sucessionais propostos apresentam comunidades arbóreas com estruturas distintas e que o uso de descritores florístico-estruturais pode contribuir para a aplicação de um sistema de classificação da vegetação secundária.
Conteúdo sob licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional. Os textos desta publicação podem ser reproduzidos no todo ou em parte desde que a fonte e os respectivos autores sejam citados. O que é Amazônia 2030O projeto Amazônia 2030 é uma iniciativa de pesquisadores brasileiros para desenvolver um plano de ações para a Amazônia brasileira. Nosso objetivo é que a região tenha condições de alcançar um patamar maior de desenvolvimento econômico e humano e atingir o uso sustentável dos recursos naturais em 2030.
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