EVOLUTION OF THE DYNAMICS OF ANTHROPOGENIC PRESSURES ON NATURAL LANDSCAPES OF THE BELÉM ENDEMISM CENTER, EASTERN AMAZON, BRAZIL

• Autor(a) principal: Dias, Luiz Jorge Bezerra da Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Costa, Gabriel Costa da, Ferreira, Letícia Moura, Costa, Allana Pereira, Guimarães, Erick Christofore, Oliveira, Tadeu Gomes de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Caminhos de Geografia
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufu.br/index.php/caminhosdegeografia/article/view/68694
• topic: Região Biogeográfica; Métricas de Paisagem; Geoecologia; Uso da terra; Biogeographical Region; Landscape Metrics; Geoecology; Land use

Anthropogenic pressures in the Brazilian Amazon have generated a number of direct impacts in the environmental systems of this biome, which has quickly become a set of anthromes. The eastern Amazon is fully contained in a biogeographic region called the Belém Endemism Center (BEC). With 247,635.44 km2, the BEC is an ecotonal complex with intense recent processes of conversion of native areas into socioeconomic spaces. Via geoprocessing techniques and fieldwork, the objective was to analyze the evolution of use pressures in the BEC during the period from 1985 to 2020. The results show an increase of 86.39% in the number of forest fragments, with a reduction of their average areas from 0.30 km2 to 0.17 km2 in 35 years. Forest fragments, which in 1985 had a minimum distance of 200 meters, became 500 meters apart in 2020, an increase of 250% in the period. There was a real loss of 82.58% of continuous forests. Protected areas represent only 32.54% of the eastern Amazon, when they should be between 50 and 80% according to current laws. The BEC, despite its biogeographical and ecological importance, is currently configured as being of high human control and requires efforts towards ecological restoration from the public and private sectors.