Deforestations, following by landscape fragmentation have been the main agent of natural ecosystems destruction worldwide. Landscape fragmentation can be understood as the process of transforming an area of continuous natural vegetation into smaller areas isolated from each other by environments different of the original. The objective of this study was to analyze the spatial structure of the deforestation polygons inserted into a landscape matrix of native Cerrado vegetation in the northern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. In order to evaluate the effect of deforestation on the landscape structure we used metrics or landscape ecology indices. The landscape ecology indices were calculated using a free ArcGis 9.3 software extension called V-Late (Vector-based Landscape Analysis). The results showed the occurrence of 30 deforestation polygons that together represent an area of 670.86 ha. The largest deforestation polygon had an area of 428.58 ha which accounts for over 60% of the total area deforested. In environments where the landscape matrix is the native vegetation, the greater the edge area of the deforestation polygons, the greater the impact on the natural ecosystem. On the other hand, the smaller the edge area and the greater the distance between neighboring deforestation polygons, the lower will be the impact of deforestation on the natural ecosystem.Pages: 7016-702
