Use and earth coverage in permanent preservation areas on dairy Proprieties of Vale do Taquari/RS

Abstract

Land occupation of the Permanent Preservation Areas (PPA) for human use on rural properties is a common practice. The indiscriminate use of such areas brings a number of environmental damages, such as soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, erosion, silting of watercourses, among others. This work aims to identify the form of land use and occupation of PPA in rural dairy properties and relate to milk yield. Therefore, 111 rural dairy farms from the Vale do Taquari - RS region with PPAs were selected. The properties were mapped using geoprocessing tools and confirmed in field visits. The PPAs of the 111 properties total 280.1 hectares, of which 38.0% correspond to the native forest preserved, 58.3% are used for anthropic purposes, such as improvements, pastures, exotic forest and annual crops, 3.5% if refer to dams and wetlands and 0.3% are discovered soils No association was identified between the percentage of native vegetation cover and milk yield. It is concluded that there are different uses and occupations of APPs of the milk producing properties of the Vale do Taquari, less than half of them being covered with native native vegetation, as foreseen in the Brazilian Forest Code.