Deforestation in Mixed Ombrophilous Forest in the Serrana Region of Santa Catarina

Abstract

Since the enactment of Law No. 11,428/06, an expectation was created as to whether more restricted rules on the use and conservation of the Atlantic Forest Biome would be sufficient to reduce deforestation. In the same sense, the inspection bodies stood out due to their responsibility in the application of this important legal instrument. In this context, the objectives of this study were: 1) to analyze the history of deforestation in the Planalto Serrano of the State of Santa Catarina, whose forest covered area is characterized by the Mixed Ombrophilous Forest, after the validity of Law 11,428/06; 2) to verify the application of the Law in the occurrence of deforestation, and 3) to identify the reasons for deforestation. A documentary research was carried out on 543 criminal procedures instituted by the Environmental Military Police for deforestation between December 2006 and December 2015. From each criminal case the following data were extracted: date, number of occurrences per year and municipality, size, successional stage of the deforested area, motive and land use of deforested areas. The results indicated that there was an accentuated reduction of 58% in the number of deforestation between 2007 and 2015. However, the selective cutting of Araucaria angustifolia (Bertol.) Kuntze was predominant with a percentage of 62.07% of the total number of occurrences. It was also verified that 71.46% of deforestation reached the middle stage of forest regeneration. In most case (33%), the reason for deforestation was for commercial purposes. The law for the protection of the Atlantic Forest Biome, conjunctly with the inspection, contributed to reduce deforestation and the cut of araucarias. Nevertheless, advancements are still needed, especially in the recovery of deforested areas, since only 28% of deforested areas were effectively restored.

Environmental Violation Fines Growth in the Northern Region of Santa Catarina State, Brazil

“…The entire northern region has a very rugged terrain, with formations of plains, plateaus and mountains, and the minimum altitude is three meters above sea level at Joinville municipality and maximum altitude is 925 meters above sea level at Itaiópolis municipality (SEBRAE, 2013). The northern region of the Santa Catarina State is characterized by Dense Ombrophilous Forest, Mixed Ombrophilous Forest (MOF) and Plateau Grassland Fields, with several species of invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals (Schneider et al, 2018;Andrade et al, 2015).…”

“…In Santa Catarina State, located in Southern Brazil, the PMA is an integral body of the State Environmental System and it is responsible for implementing environmental inspection of the infractions related to flora, fauna, pollution, urban planning and administration, which occurs throughout the entire region (Sothe & Goetten, 2017). The performance of the PMA could be described as finding the environmental infraction, in whichthe infraction notice takes place until its judgment (Schneider et al, 2018).…”

Disrupting a socioecological system: how Traditional Ecological Knowledge could be the key to preserve Araucaria Forest in Brazil under climate change?

“…However, the majority of extractors usually gather and trade pinhão for nancial subsistence and food security, and not to guarantee the species conservation, ecosystem maintenance, or sustainable harvesting (Adan et al 2016;Tagliari and Peroni 2018;Quinteiro et al 2019;Tagliari et al 2021a). The lack of environmental incentives, especially via Payment for Ecosystem Services (Tagliari et al 2019), promote, especially for landowners, antagonistic conservation practices, such as the araucaria seedling suppression (Tagliari and Peroni 2018;Schneider et al 2018;Quinteiro et al 2019). It is widely documented the claim of TEK holders to create a mechanism for valuing their interactions and indirect consequences by preserving araucaria (Adan et al 2016;Tagliari and Peroni 2018;Quinteiro et al 2019), even though this socioeconomic and ecological interaction in the highly fragmented relics of the Araucaria Forest promotes: gene ow (Zechini et al 2018); genetic diversity (Montagna et al 2019); intraspeci c diversity for araucaria populations (Mello and Peroni 2015;Adan et al 2016;Reis et al 2018;Quinteiro et al 2019); maintenance of productive forest remnants via "conservation-by-use" (Reis et al 2018); and the maintenance or even the expansion of the entire socio-ecological system via positive feedbacks (Tagliari et al 2021a).…”

Structure, Biomass and Diversity of a Late-Successional Subtropical Atlantic Forest in Brazil

“…The Atlantic Forest is among the Earth's hotspots for biodiversity conservation, having great levels of tree species endemism (Myers et al, 2000;Lima et al, 2020). Nevertheless, historical and ongoing deforestation reduced its area to less than 20% of its original cover (Ribeiro et al, 2009), and most of its remnants consist of fragmented forests often disturbed by human activities such as selective logging (Schneider et al, 2018), cattle grazing within stands (Pereira et al, 2015), and hunting (Bragagnolo et al, 2019). However, the Atlantic Forest still holds a surprising number of arborescent species (Lima et al, 2020), many of them with some degree of rarity in nature (Caiafa & Martins, 2010;Oliveira et al, 2019a).…”