Implicações territoriais da alteração do Código Florestal: o patrimônio vegetal na bacia do Ribeirão Água Limpa, Uberlândia/MG

Abstract

There is a historical difficulty in implementing the environmental restrictions foreseen by the Brazilian forest legislation, among them the Forest Code (FC). Although there is a constitutional provision for the establishment of specially protected areas, its territorialization, particularly of the Permanent Preservation Areas and Legal Reserve provided by law, has been ineffective. The Brazilian agrarian space is characterized by environmental and social conflicts resulting from the historical process of the constitution of the economy and social structures. The Cerrado domain has one of the greatest biodiversity on the planet and plays a central role in the production of water in the national territory. The present environmental liability is large and much of it has been amnestied by the New Forest Code (NFC) in force since 2012. The Água Limpa River Basin was chosen for a case study and to test the hypothesis that the NFC increased the vulnerability of the remaining fragments of native vegetation in the territories of the Cerrado with high rate of deforestation. The general aim of the research is to identify and analyse the territorial and environmental implications of the changes promoted by the NFC in the Ribeirão Água Limpa River Basin – Uberlândia. The materials and methods used were documentary research, bibliographical review, remote sensing images acquisition from the years 1979, 2008 and 2017 for mapping the basin, the spatial data available from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) and fieldwork for area recognition. Developmentalism, adopted as a model of economic policy in Brazil during part of the twentieth century, stimulated deforestation and environmental degradation from policies contradictory with the FC. The NFC caused a lot of controversy regarding the consolidated rural area, the alteration of the criteria for the establishment of Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) and for the demarcation of the Legal Reserve (RL). The CAR has proved to be a useful tool for environmental management of the territory, providing important information such as the perimeter of the rural property and the RL area. The occupation of the Ribeirão Água Limpa basin was stimulated by the national policy of occupation of the Cerrado in the central region of Brazil. The main activity implemented was cattle raising, with pasture being the dominant land use, occupying 39% of the area studied for the year 2017. The average index of 37.78% of native vegetation for the basin was found, which is high in relation to the general data of the Triângulo Mineiro, due to the presence of trails that are geosystems protected by law and difficult to explore. The cerrado sensu stricto vegetation was the most affected, remaining few fragments that occupy 10.6% of the mapped area. The total mapped area of ​​APP to be recomposed with native vegetation is 301.3 ha. Real estate larger than four tax modules are the main impact on the landscape. A trend towards stabilization in the incorporation of new areas to agricultural activities in the study area was revealed. Therefore, the NFC did not increase the vulnerability of native vegetation.