O desmatamento na Amazônia e a importância das áreas protegidas

Abstract

DEMOGRAPHIC occupation of the Brazilian Legal Amazon within the past 50 years has lead to significant levels of deforestation as the result of several factors such as new road construction, urban growth, expansion of extensive cattle ranching, increasing timber extraction, and rising intensive agriculture of monocultures. The cumulative deforested area in Brazil's Legal Amazonia was approximately 653,000 km² in 2003, correspondingto 16,3% of the region. This study sought to assess deforestation within or near to protected areas (conservation units) and indigenous reserves in Legal Amazonia in the states of Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Pará that jointly were responsible for more than 90% of regional deforestation from 2001 to 2003. Results show that deforestation was about 10 to 20 times less within the protected areas and indigenous lands than in adjoining areas. This demonstrates the importance of protected areas to hold back deforestation in these three states, refuting the widely held hypothesis that protected areas do not fulfill their main function in the conservation and sustainable use of resources in Amazonia.