Evaluation of the dynamics of legal deforestation in the Amapá state with the use of geotechnologies

Abstract

The state of Amapá is the most conserved in Brazil, with 97% of forest cover intact, a total of 73% of the state's territory corresponds to protected areas that include conservation units and indigenous or quilombola lands. However, in recent years there have been no technical-scientific studies with the objective of measuring and identifying the deforestation authorized in the State, since without distinction of illegal deforestation it is not possible to direct actions and public policies directly applied to illegal activities. The main objective of this research was to analyze the impact of illegal deforestation on the total deforestation of the state of Amapá in the years of 2013 and 2014 through geotechnology tools. For the spatial analysis, the Geographic Information System (GIS) was used from the ArcGIS software, and shapefile of deforested areas and deforestation authorizations, issued by the competent agency, being spatialized and compared. The results showed that in the years of 2013 and 2014 the unauthorized deforestation reached 50.13%, which corresponded to 3,493.58 hectares, that is, more than half of the deforestation detected by the State Department and Environment was carried out illegally in the state of Amapá. It was evident that geotechnology is a very useful tool due to its functionality, demonstrating the possibility and necessity of the application of geoprocessing for the analysis of legal deforestation, with the spatialisation of deforestation authorizations.