Caracterização da paisagem e sua influência sobre comunidades vegetais em restauração na região da floresta atlântica no litoral paranaense

Orientadora : Profa. Dra. Marcia C. M. MarquesCo-orientador : Prof. Dr. José Marcelo D. TorezanDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências Biológicas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação. Defesa: Curitiba, 29/07/2011Bibliografia: fls. 48-53Resumo: A Floresta Atlântica é um dos biomas de maior biodiversidade do mundo e por isso sua conservação é extremamente importante. Atualmente, apresenta-se muito fragmentada sendo que os remanescentes representam menos de 10% da área original. O litoral norte do estado do Paraná é uma das regiões com a maior cobertura de remanescentes da Floresta Atlântica e neste contexto, trabalhos que avaliem o grau de conservação e degradação de sua paisagem são de grande relevância. A paisagem pode ser considerada como um dos elementos fundamentais para a restauração ecológica, pois o contexto geográfico onde as áreas degradadas estão inseridas pode influenciar de várias maneiras os processos e interações ecológicas envolvidos na restauração. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo analisar como a paisagem regional influencia a restauração da Floresta Atlântica no litoral norte do Paraná. Foram avaliados a estrutura da paisagem da Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) de Guaraqueçaba (capítulo 1) e as relações entre as métricas de paisagem e a comunidade vegetal em áreas de restauração (capítulo 2). Os resultados mostraram que a APA de Guaraqueçaba possui pouca alteração em sua cobertura florestal (68% de florestas avançada) e que boa parte das áreas alteradas está localizada na planície litorânea. Também foi verificado que a quantidade e qualidade dos habitats naturais e distância destes em relação às parcelas de avaliação tem uma forte relação com a riqueza, abundância absoluta, e área basal da vegetação das áreas de restauração. Os resultados do trabalho demonstram a importância do litoral norte do Paraná para a manutenção da biodiversidade da Floresta Atlântica e como uma área prioritária para a conservação da natureza.Abstract: (Fragmentation and restoration of Atlantic Forest in the coast of Paraná state) The Atlantic Forest is one of the biomes of greater biodiversity in the world and where conservation is extremely important. Currently, the biome has a great fragmentation and has a very reduced area in relation to its original covering (>10 % ). The northern coast of Parana state is one of the regions with the greatest coverage of Atlantic Forest. Thus works assessing the conservation and degradation status of its landscape are of great importance. The landscape can be considered as one of the key elements for the ecological restoration, because the geographical context where the degraded areas are inserted may influence of the various ways the processes and ecological interactions involved in the restoration. This dissertation had the purpose to analyze issues relating to the fragmentation and restoration of Atlantic Forest on the north coast of Paraná by evaluating the structure of the landscape of the Area of Environmental Protection of Guaraqueçaba (APA Guaraqueçaba), north shore of the state of Paraná (chapter 1) and analyzing the relationships between landscape and plant community in areas of restoration of Atlantic Forest (chapter 2). The results showed that the APA - Guaraqueçaba has little changes in its formally forest cover (68% of advnced forests) and that the greater part of altered areas is located in coastal plain. It was also found that the quantity and quality of natural habitats and distance of these in relation to the plots of evaluation has a strong relationship with the species richness, abundance, and the basal area of vegetation in restoration areas. The results of the study show the importance of the northern coast of the Paraná state for the maintenance of the biodiversity of the Atlantic Forest and as a priority area for the nature conservation

Biodiversity, threats and conservation challenges in the Cerrado of Amapá, an Amazonian savanna

An Amazonian savanna in northern Brazil known as the Cerrado of Amapá is under imminent threat from poor land-use planning, the expansion of large-scale agriculture and other anthropogenic pressures. These savannas house a rich and unique flora and fauna, including endemic plants and animals. However, the area remains under-sampled for most taxa, and better sampling may uncover new species. We estimate that only ∼9.16% of these habitats have any kind of protection, and legislative changes threaten to further weaken or remove this protection. Here we present the status of knowledge concerning the biodiversity of the Cerrado of Amapá, its conservation status, and the main threats to the conservation of this Amazonian savanna. To secure the future of these unique and imperilled habitats, we suggest urgent expansion of protected areas, as well as measures that would promote less-damaging land uses to support the local population. Copyright © 2017 Karen Mustin et al

Do protected areas hamper economic development of the Amazon region? An analysis of the relationship between protected areas and the economic growth of Brazilian Amazon municipalities

•Protected areas cover 48 % of the Brazilian Amazon.•Protected areas do not hamper local development across the Brazilian Amazonia.•Protected areas can be local economic engines if they are fully implemented. The Brazilian Amazon harbours 70 % of the world’s tropical forests and is essential to the country’s economy because it maintains biodiversity, sustains the livelihoods of the indigenous people and local communities, and provides ecosystem services such as water production, soil stabilization, flood prevention, and climate regulation. In the last three decades, the Brazilian government has established a regional protected area (PA) network that currently covers approximately 48 % of the region. Despite their importance, some sectors of the Brazilian society have argued that the expansion of the PAs across the region hampers the local economic development, because they make less area available for non-forest economic activities such as large-scale agriculture, mining, and power generation. In this study, we analysed the relationship between local economic growth and PA coverage in 516 municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon from 2004 to 2014. We modelled the impact of the coverage of the three types of PAs (strictly-protected, multiple-use, and indigenous lands) on the (i) compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the real gross domestic product per capita (GDP per capita), and (ii) real gross value added per capita (GVA per capita) of the agriculture, industry, services, and government sectors in each municipality. The models also considered the following control variables at the municipal level: area, age, per capita GPD in 2004 (or per capita GVAs in 2004), population growth rate between 2004 and 2014, education index, deforested area outside PA per capita, deforested area inside PA per capita, degraded area outside PA per capita, degraded area inside PA per capita, and presence of illegal mining within PA. We applied spatial Durbin error models (SDEM) to analyse the direct, indirect, and total impacts of the PAs on the local economic growth. We did not find a statistically significant relationship between the local economic growth and PA coverage in any of the three PA groups evaluated. Only the total impact of the GVA per capita of the industry was negatively correlated with the coverage of the strictly-protected PAs. Our findings do not support the arguments used by some interest groups of the Brazilian society that the social and environmental gains generated through the expansion of PAs across the region constrain the overall local economic growth

Landscape structure in the northern coast of Paraná state, a hotspot for the brazilian Atlantic Forest conservation

The "Serra do Mar" region comprises the largest remnant of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The coast of the Paraná State is part of the core area of the "Serra do Mar" corridor and where actions for biodiversity conservation must be planned. In this study we aimed at characterizing the landscape structure in the APA-Guaraqueçaba, the largest protected area in this region, in order to assist environmental policies of this region. Based on a supervised classification of a mosaic of LANDSAT-5-TM satellite images (from March 2009), we developed a map (1:75,000 scale) with seven classes of land use and land cover and analyzed the relative quantities of forests and modified areas in slopes and lowlands. The APA-Guaraqueçaba is comprised mainly by the Dense Ombrophilous Forest (68.6% of total area) and secondary forests (9.1%), indicating a forested landscape matrix; anthropogenic and bare soil areas (0.8%) and the Pasture/Grasslands class (4.2%) were less representative. Slopes were less fragmented and more preserved (96.3% of Dense Ombrophilous Forest and secondary forest) than lowlands (71.3%), suggesting that restoration initiatives in the lowlands must be stimulated in this region. We concluded that most of the region sustains well-conserved ecosystems, highlighting the importance of Paraná northern coast for the biodiversity maintenance of the Atlantic Forest