Deforestation in agrarian reform settlements in Minas Gerais – Brazil

Abstract

Agrarian reform settlements are an alternative to land deconcentration, aiming at socioeconomic and environmental sustainability in rural areas, based on the expropriation of unproductive areas or areas that do not fulfill their social function. In this process, areas with environmental liabilities are likely to be destined for agrarian reform, which translates into a challenge for the development and environmental management of rural settlements, which must conform to land use regulations. This paper aims to analyze deforestation in rural land reform settlements in Minas Gerais state, acording legal reserves areas provided before and after July 22, 2008, a milestone for the implementation of the Brazilian Forest Code. The sample consists of 31 rural settlements distributed in five mesoregions of Minas Gerais State, totaling 1288 lots. Data were collected under the RADIS/UFMT Project, from vectorizations, carried out based on satellite images from 2008 and 2018, obtaining the comparative mapping before and after the referred milestone. The results reveal that the surveyed settlements have environmental liabilities before the Forest Code milestone and, after this, there is no deforestation in the lots. As the forest restoration occurred before the milestone of responsibility of the public power, in the case of agrarian reform, it is concluded that the effective implementation of the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) is necessary, as a mechanism to enable the restoration of deforested areas and recovery of environmental liabilities.