Transição florestal no estado de SP: artefato ou realidade?

The Forest Transition (FT) represents the turning point on land use when reforestation becomes greater than deforestation. This phenomenon is driven by urbanization and industrialization, what would make agricultural labor more expensive and crops would consequently concentrate on more fertile lands. The less productive lands would then recover natural vegetation. According to two recent surveys conducted independently by Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) and Instituto Florestal (IF), São Paulo (SP) state, the more industrialized state in Brazil, would be going through FT. The surveys used different methods and the state-scale aggregated results suggested FT occurrence in SP. The aim of this study was to investigate if the convergence between the two surveys on aggregated state-scale results would be confirmed by a county-scale analysis. From a sample of 40 counties in the state, we performed a comparative analysis between changes in forest cover indicated by the IBGE in the period from 1995 to 2006, and those identified by the IF between 1990 and 2001. Most counties showed conflicting results between the results of the two surveys. Thus, the apparent convergence between the two surveys at state-scale results was not confirmed at county-scale analysis, what suggests that FT phenomenon in SP can in truth be an artifact from data aggregation.Pages: 1547-155