Influence of land-use planning on public forests' vegetation cover: Insights from the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Allocating Brazilian undesignated public forests (UPF) to specific land-use categories is advocated as essential for improved forest governance. In 2010, a 1.3-million-hectare area of UPF in eastern Amazon, known as the Mamuru-Arapiuns Glebas, underwent a land-use planning and allocation process. Over a decade later, the impact of this initiative on the region's forest cover remains unknown. Analyses of forest cover dynamics and land use within the newly created land categories were conducted in four-year intervals from 2006 to 2018. The results indicated a total forest cover loss of 50,017 ha (4 %), with annual rates increasing over the analyzed periods and a significant rise in deforestation and/or logging activities in some land categories following the land-use planning (e.g. in community areas, altered forests increased by an average of 641 ha/year). During the first post-planning period (T₂), forest cover loss increased by 18 % compared to the pre-planning period (T₁). In T₃, the increase was 350 %, resulting in annual losses ranging from 1708 ha/year to 7690 ha/year. The findings reveal that while allocating UPF contributes to land-use governance in a specific region, it does not necessarily lead to reduced deforestation, depending on the chosen land-use category. Additionally, the study highlights that UPF allocation is only a first step, emphasizing the crucial need for implementing effective management tools in these areas to enhance the strategy's success and achieve better forest governance in the Amazon.