The aim was to harmonise two approaches, one based on history and the other on achievements in space. A geohistorical approach was therefore sought. Using communal production data from the PAM-IBGE series, we assessed indicators of representativeness and dominance, which indicate possible phases in the oil palm production chain. The relevance of each of these phases indicated trajectories between communes. A current assessment of these trajectories is provided. On a number of occasions, the strong presence of the state was evident, allowing the establishment of cultivation to be seen as a product of planning. Currently, the chain is highly concentrated in the micro-region of Tome-acu, in particular Tailandia and Moju, which could be called the "palm region", although the new areas incorporated in recent years indicate a clear territorial expansion of cultivation, both in terms of consolidation and very recent production. The role of the State as initiator and guarantor of the development of the oil palm sector is assessed.

The aim was to harmonise two approaches, one based on history and the other on achievements in space. A geohistorical approach was therefore sought. Using communal production data from the PAM-IBGE series, we assessed indicators of representativeness and dominance, which indicate possible phases in the oil palm production chain. The relevance of each of these phases indicated trajectories between communes. A current assessment of these trajectories is provided. On a number of occasions, the strong presence of the state was evident, allowing the establishment of cultivation to be seen as a product of planning. Currently, the chain is highly concentrated in the micro-region of Tomé-açu, in particular Tailândia and Moju, which could be called the "palm region", although the new areas incorporated in recent years indicate a clear territorial expansion of cultivation, both in terms of consolidation and very recent production. The role of the State as initiator and guarantor of the development of the oil palm sector is assessed.

This study examines how land tenure constrains Brazil’s ability to meet its deforestation control and forest restoration goals in its Amazonia biome. Our findings are based on an updated assessment of land tenure and land use in the region. Between 2019 and 2021, 44% of deforestation in Amazonia occurred in private lands, while forest removal in settlements ranged from 31% to 27% of the total. Deforestation in undesignated public lands increased from 11% in 2008 to 18% in 2021. Deforestation is highly concentrated, with 1% of properties accounting for 82.5% of forest cuts in 2021. In Amazonia, there is considerable non-compliance with the legal reserve provisions set by Brazil’s Forest Code. Legal reserve deficits in private lands sum up to 18.17 Mha (million hectares), compared with 12.49 Mha of legal reserve surpluses. Even if all forest surpluses are offered in the forest credits market set in the Forest Code, farmers still need to restore 5.67 Mha to comply with the law. Large-scale cattle ranchers have a legal reserve deficit of 10.35 Mha (34% of their area). Most crop farming occurs in medium and large properties (4.63 Mha) with a large proportion of legal reserve deficits (45%). Given the political power and financial resources of large ranchers and crop producers, Brazil faces major challenges in inducing these farmers to meet their legal obligations. Therefore, Brazil needs to combine robust command-and-control strategies with market-based policies to achieve its deforestation and forest restoration goals. The government should tailor forest protection and restoration policies to the needs of different landowners, considering their land use practices, technical capacity, and financial resources.

In its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Brazil committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and restoring its forests. This study examines the challenges of fulfilling these commitments in Brazilian Amazonia. We carry out a detailed assessment of the current status of land tenure in the region and its relation to deforestation. After dealing with conflicts and overlaps between data from various sources, we produce a new map of public and private land tenure in Amazonia. Combining this map with Brazil's official data on deforestation, we find out how much natural vegetation has been preserved in each public or private area. The result is used to estimate how much deforestation is illegal. We also establish how much deforestation is associated with each land tenure type. Our results show that most deforestation inside rural properties is done by a few landowners, a finding that has important consequences for law enforcement. We then assess the challenges for reforestation in detail. To do so, we consider how much forest needs to be rehabilitated according to Brazil's Forest Code. Our analysis provides a comprehensive appraisal of the potential opportunity costs for forest restoration in the biome, considering farm size and land use. This analysis provides insights into targeted land use policies that can meet Brazil’s forest restoration goals.

The state of Pará, located in the Amazon region of Brazil, has observed in recent years an increase in cocoa (Theobroma cacao) cultivation and has become the largest producer in Brazil. Due to its physiological characteristics, cacao is cultivated in native forests understory or under the shade produced by fast-growing native tree species, serving as an important species for restoration of degraded areas. However, mapping and monitoring cocoa plantation using optical sensor images is a challenge given its botanical and arboreal characteristics that can be confused with other native species at various stages of secondary regrowth. Agroforestry systems are important components of sustainable production in the Amazon and our work sought to better describe the evolution of cocoa plantations in terms of their historical expansion, farming properties practices, land use transitions and fire regimes. Our findings to analyze the relationships between cocoa plantations and hotspots, data from the INPE's reference satellite between the years 2004 to 2020 were used in this study, polygons classified as cocoa areas, generated by the MapCacau research project, were used, in a total of 69,904 hectares distributed throughout the state of Pará. Finally, we used the protected areas' official limits in the State of Pará to analyze the plantations' occurrence in regions in discordance with environmental legislation. The data show that cocoa-producing properties are statistically fewer than non-producing properties, as well as having lower deforestation rates. In our study, we observed that 52,778 hectares (88.87%) of the cocoa area planted had already been deforested by the year 2008—the threshold of deforestation defined by Brazil's Forest Code. It was also possible to verify that approximately 20,900 hectares continue to be mapped as forest by PRODES, despite our field data identifying cocoa plantations shaded by explored forest in these areas. Regarding the crop's formation, the data show a tendency to convert pasture areas to cocoa plantations, proving that cocoa farming expansion in the State of Pará is an important activity for degraded areas recovery and not a main driver of deforestation. The finding that cocoa plantations are still classified as forest by PRODES and project TerraClass highlights the difficulty of mapping this crop using orbital images in a traditional way. Through this paper, it was possible to observe that due to the typical characteristics of perennial crops (cocoa), fire points showed a significant reduction in the mapped areas, highlighting that the expansion of cocoa plantations in the state of Pará contributed to soil protection, to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into, in addition to contributing to the generation of jobs and revenue. Finally, we found about 99.54% of the cacao plantations in the State of Pará are located outside of any preservation area, indigenous land or quilombola settlement.

One of the main applications of machine learning (ML) in remote sensing (RS) is the pixel-level classification of satellite images into land cover types. Although classes with different spectral signatures can be easily separated, e.g. aquatic and terrestrial land cover types, others have similar spectral signatures and are hard to separate using only the information within a single pixel. This work focused on the separation of two cover types with similar spectral signatures, cocoa agroforest and forest, over an area in Para, Brazil. For this, we study the training and application of several ML algorithms on datasets obtained from a single composite image, a time-series (TS) composite obtained from the same location and by preprocessing the TS composite using simple TS preprocessing techniques. As expected, when ML algorithms are applied to a dataset obtained from a composite image, the median producer's accuracy (PA) and user's accuracy (UA) in those two classes are significantly lower than the median overall accuracy (OA) for all classes. The second dataset allows the ML models to learn the evolution of the spectral signatures over 5 months. Compared to the first dataset, the results indicate that ML models generalize better using TS data, even if the series are short and without any preprocessing. This generalization is further improved in the last dataset. The ML models are subsequently applied to an area with different geographical bounds. These last results indicate that, out of seven classifiers, the popular random forest (RF) algorithm ranked fourth, while XGBoost (xGB) obtained the best results. The best OA, as well as the best PA/UA balance, were obtained by performing feature construction using the M3GP algorithm and then applying XGB to the new extended dataset.

Fire, normally associated with the deforestation process, is used to prevent vegetation regrowth and to renew crops and pastures. This paper identifies the relation between the changes in classes of land use and cover in relation to the use of anthropic fire in the Brazilian Amazonia for 2008-2014, thus quantifying tendencies of fire use in the region. Sankey-type graphs were used to analyze fire regimes. Two sources of data were used: the Amazonia TerraClass spatial database with land use and land cover classes estimated from Landsat imagery and the MODIS-AQUA fire pixels. In the fire affected areas, the recurrence was higher in the conversion of natural and secondary forests to pasture, and for pasture maintenance, where the respective percentages in land cover/use change were 22%, 40% and 71%. Also evidenced are the inefficient policies to control the illegal use of fire and in reducing the associated atmospheric emissions.

This paper presents the preliminary results of the Environmental Monitoring by Satellites Project of the Amazon Biome, subproject 1 - Mapping of land use and cover in the Legal Amazon, through the field mission in the Eastern Amazon, in the state of Para, during the period From May 23 to 25, 2016 in Paragominas-PA. Land use classes and validation of the past mapping of deforestation were recognized through mappings for the years 2004, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014, from which the land use dynamics were obtained, considering the annual agriculture classes And productive pasture, also referred to as clean pasture, degraded pastures, which included the regeneration classes with pasture, dirty pasture and exposed soil, as well as SRTM sensor products, through which a map of landscape compartments was produced, which allowed mapping The distribution of said land use classes in each of the four landscape units found in the municipality of Paragominas. The results show that there is a predominance of pastures in the lower areas that contain higher drainage densities and water courses that provide watering for livestock, while in the plateaus, where only the dry springs and gaps and flat relief are located in the larger ones altitudes, areas of agriculture predominate.

Evaluation of the primary forests in the Brazilian state of Pará shows that anthropogenic disturbance can more than double the loss of biodiversity expected from deforestation. The protection of tropical forests is integral to many biodiversity conservation strategies. These strategies have focused on the maintenance of forest cover, but anthropogenic disturbance, in the form of logging, wildfires and landscape disturbance, has the potential to reduce the conservation value of remaining tropical forests. Jos Barlow et al. assess the combined effect of these forms of anthropogenic disturbance on the conservation value of primary forest in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, using occurrence data on 1,538, 460 and 156 species of plants, birds and dung beetles, respectively, collected along a gradient of forest cover. They find that anthropogenic disturbance has more than doubled the biodiversity loss expected from deforestation alone in catchments comprising 69–80% forest cover. They say that their findings call for policy interventions that go beyond the maintenance of forest cover, if the rich diversity of tropical forest ecosystems is to be safeguarded. Concerted political attention has focused on reducing deforestation1,2,3, and this remains the cornerstone of most biodiversity conservation strategies4,5,6. However, maintaining forest cover may not reduce anthropogenic forest disturbances, which are rarely considered in conservation programmes6. These disturbances occur both within forests, including selective logging and wildfires7,8, and at the landscape level, through edge, area and isolation effects9. Until now, the combined effect of anthropogenic disturbance on the conservation value of remnant primary forests has remained unknown, making it impossible to assess the relative importance of forest disturbance and forest loss. Here we address these knowledge gaps using a large data set of plants, birds and dung beetles (1,538, 460 and 156 species, respectively) sampled in 36 catchments in the Brazilian state of Pará. Catchments retaining more than 69–80% forest cover lost more conservation value from disturbance than from forest loss. For example, a 20% loss of primary forest, the maximum level of deforestation allowed on Amazonian properties under Brazil’s Forest Code5, resulted in a 39–54% loss of conservation value: 96–171% more than expected without considering disturbance effects. We extrapolated the disturbance-mediated loss of conservation value throughout Pará, which covers 25% of the Brazilian Amazon. Although disturbed forests retained considerable conservation value compared with deforested areas, the toll of disturbance outside Pará’s strictly protected areas is equivalent to the loss of 92,000–139,000 km2 of primary forest. Even this lowest estimate is greater than the area deforested across the entire Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2015 (ref. 10). Species distribution models showed that both landscape and within-forest disturbances contributed to biodiversity loss, with the greatest negative effects on species of high conservation and functional value. These results demonstrate an urgent need for policy interventions that go beyond the maintenance of forest cover to safeguard the hyper-diversity of tropical forest ecosystems.

ABSTRACT Understanding spatial patterns of land use and land cover is essential for studies addressing biodiversity, climate change and environmental modeling as well as for the design and monitoring of land use policies. The aim of this study was to create a detailed map of land use land cover of the deforested areas of the Brazilian Legal Amazon up to 2008. Deforestation data from and uses were mapped with Landsat-5/TM images analysed with techniques, such as linear spectral mixture model, threshold slicing and visual interpretation, aided by temporal information extracted from NDVI MODIS time series. The result is a high spatial resolution of land use and land cover map of the entire Brazilian Legal Amazon for the year 2008 and corresponding calculation of area occupied by different land use classes. The results showed that the four classes of Pasture covered 62% of the deforested areas of the Brazilian Legal Amazon, followed by Secondary Vegetation with 21%. The area occupied by Annual Agriculture covered less than 5% of deforested areas; the remaining areas were distributed among six other land use classes. The maps generated from this project - called TerraClass - are available at INPE's web site (http://www.inpe.br/cra/projetos_pesquisas/terraclass2008.php).

The current Amazon landscape consists of heterogeneous mosaics formed by interactions between the original forest and productive activities. Recognizing and quantifying the characteristics of these landscapes is essential for understanding agricultural production chains, assessing the impact of policies, and in planning future actions. Our main objective was to construct the regionalization of agricultural production for Rondônia State (Brazilian Amazon) at the municipal level. We adopted a decision tree approach, using land use maps derived from remote sensing data (PRODES and TerraClass) combined with socioeconomic data. The decision trees allowed us to allocate municipalities to one of five agricultural production systems: (i) coexistence of livestock production and intensive agriculture; (ii) semi-intensive beef and milk production; (iii) semi-intensive beef production; (iv) intensive beef and milk production, and; (v) intensive beef production. These production systems are, respectively, linked to mechanized agriculture (i), traditional cattle farming with low management, with (ii) or without (iii) a significant presence of dairy farming, and to more intensive livestock farming with (iv) or without (v) a significant presence of dairy farming. The municipalities and associated production systems were then characterized using a wide variety of quantitative metrics grouped into four dimensions: (i) agricultural production; (ii) economics; (iii) territorial configuration, and; (iv) social characteristics. We found that production systems linked to mechanized agriculture predominate in the south of the state, while intensive farming is mainly found in the center of the state. Semi-intensive livestock farming is mainly located close to the southwest frontier and in the north of the state, where human occupation of the territory is not fully consolidated. This distributional pattern reflects the origins of the agricultural production system of Rondônia. Moreover, the characterization of the production systems provides insights into the pattern of occupation of the Amazon and the socioeconomic consequences of continuing agricultural expansion.

A atual dinâmica de queimadas na Amazonia e resultado da interacao de diversos fatores no contexto exploratorio dos recursos naturais e diferentes processos produtivos extrativistas, agropecuarios e mineradores. Segundo Coutinho (2005) a politica agraria adotada durante muitos anos na regiao, limitada a simplesmente assentar ou ?lancar? o homem no campo, favoreceu o estabelecimento e manutencao de antigas estruturas das relacoes sociais e agrarias, privilegiando as classes economicamente dominantes e, portanto, as grandes propriedades. O desfecho dessa dinâmica de ocupacao e a atual fase da Amazonia, na qual a rentabilidade obtida com a pratica de atividades extrativistas, pecuarias e agricolas transformou-se na principal forca propulsora da expansao e transformacao da fronteira (Becker, 2005).

Throughout its history, Amazonia has experienced an intense process of transformation in form and in content, involving different social, political and economic elements acting in the transformation of its space. Thus, through the interpretation of present-day land use and land cover, it is possible to verify how the different actors and politics involved were associated in each specific moment in history and how this is currently reflected in space. Making use of this interpretation, the intention here is to assess these elements and their corresponding transformations in nature in order to establish reference points for reading the process of deforestation that Amazonia suffered in the last forty years and under what conditions these areas were transformed.

A Amazônia passou ao longo de sua história, por um intenso processo de transformação na sua forma e no seu conteúdo, fazendo com que diferentes elementos sociais, políticos e econômicos atuassem na transformação do seu espaço. Sendo assim, através da interpretação do atual uso e cobertura da terra, é possível verificar como os diferentes atores e políticas envolvidas se associaram em cada momento específico na história e atualmente refletem no espaço. Fazendo uso desta interpretação pretende-se abordar esses elementos e sua correspondente natureza transformada para buscar estabelecer os pontos de apoio nesta leitura para o processo de desflorestamento que a Amazônia sofreu nos últimos quarenta anos e no que estas áreas se transformaram. Palavras Chaves – Amazônia, Espaço, Desflorestamento e Uso da terra.

368 2013 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B Zuanon Carlo Stulpen Veiga, Adriano Venturieri, Cecília Viana, Diana Weinhold, Ronald Zanetti and Jansen Tancredi, James R. Thomson, Patrícia Carignano Torres, Fernando Zagury Vaz-de-Mello, Ruan João Victor Siqueira, Teotônio Soares de Carvalho, Ricardo R. C. Solar, Nicola Savério Holanda Regina Célia Viana Martins da Silva, Thiago Fonseca Morello Ramalho da Silva, Juliana Silveira, Pompeu, Carla Rodrigues Ribas, Felipe Rossetti, Fernando Augusto Schmidt, Rodrigo da Silva, Nunes, Victor Hugo Fonseca Oliveira, Renata Pardini, Heloisa Correia Pereira, Paulo Santos Márcia Motta Maués, Fátima M. S. Moreira, Carla Morsello, Nárgila Moura, Jorge Nessimian, Sâmia Fátima Lopes Almeida, Reinaldo Lourival, Júlio Louzada, Ralph Mac Nally, Sébastien Marchand, Junior, Phil Kaufmann, Vanesca Korasaki, Cecília Gontijo Leal, Rafael Leitão, Natália Lima, Maria de Junior, José Max Barbosa de Oliveira Junior, Raimundo Cosme de Oliveira Junior, Carlos Souza Robert M. Hughes, Danilo Carmago Igliori, Ederson da Conceição Jesus, Leandro Juen, Miércio Hamada, Alessandra dos Santos Gomes, Karoline da Silva Gonçalves, José Benito Guerrero, Neusa Ana Carolina Fiorini, Lenise Vargas Flores da Silva, Fábio Soares Frazão, Rachel Garrett, Mora Esquerdo, José Feres, Silvio Frosini de Barros Ferraz, Amanda Estefânia de Melo Ferreira, Cunha, Álvaro D'Antona, Joelma Dezincourt, Karina Dias-Silva, Mariana Durigan, Júlio César Dalla Assis Costa, Carla Daniele Furtado da Costa, Emilie Coudel, Alexandre Camargo Coutinho, Dênis Carvalho, Sergio André Castelani, Júlio Cézar Mário Chaul, Carlos Eduardo Cerri, Francisco de Campos de Oliveira, Amanda Cardoso Nunes Cordeiro, Thiago Moreira Cardoso, Déborah Reis de Braga, Janaína Gomes de Brito, Plínio Barbosa de Camargo, Fabiane Campos dos Santos, Vívian Anzolin Begotti, Troy Beldini, Driss Ezzine de Blas, Rodrigo Fagundes Braga, Danielle de Lima Aragão, Ivanei Araújo, Williams Souza de Ávila, Richard D. Bardgett, Mateus Batistella, Rodrigo Vieira, Erika Berenguer, Ricardo Abramovay, Alexandre Aleixo, Christian Andretti, Luiz E. O. C. Toby A. Gardner, Joice Ferreira, Jos Barlow, Alexander C. Lees, Luke Parry, Ima Célia Guimarães multiple scales: the Sustainable Amazon Network A social and ecological assessment of tropical land uses at

Throughout its history, Amazonia has experienced an intense process of transformation in form and in content, involving different social, political and economic elements acting in the transformation of its space. Thus, through the interpretation of present-day land use and land cover, it is possible to verify how the different actors and politics involved were associated in each specifi c moment in history and how this is currently refl ected in space. Making use of this interpretation, the intention here is to assess these elements and their corresponding transformations in nature in order to establish reference points for reading the process of deforestation that Amazonia suffered in the last forty years and under what conditions these areas were transformed.

Science has a critical role to play in guiding more sustainable development trajectories. Here, we present the Sustainable Amazon Network ( Rede Amazônia Sustentável , RAS): a multidisciplinary research initiative involving more than 30 partner organizations working to assess both social and ecological dimensions of land-use sustainability in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. The research approach adopted by RAS offers three advantages for addressing land-use sustainability problems: (i) the collection of synchronized and co-located ecological and socioeconomic data across broad gradients of past and present human use; (ii) a nested sampling design to aid comparison of ecological and socioeconomic conditions associated with different land uses across local, landscape and regional scales; and (iii) a strong engagement with a wide variety of actors and non-research institutions. Here, we elaborate on these key features, and identify the ways in which RAS can help in highlighting those problems in most urgent need of attention, and in guiding improvements in land-use sustainability in Amazonia and elsewhere in the tropics. We also discuss some of the practical lessons, limitations and realities faced during the development of the RAS initiative so far.

The production of palm oil, which represents an interesting alternative for decentralized production and use of biodiesel, would also an appropriate solution for the recovery of degraded areas in Amazonia, especially south of Belem? The heart of the demonstration is here rather the territorial impact of plantations and on the territorialities that are being implemented with the installation of this production in the Guajarina region