Deforestation and Expansion of the Agro-Pastoral Frontier in Mato Grosso, Brazil

Abstract

Vegetation cover change has been reported to occur over large areas in the southern Legal Amazon due to extensive cattle ranching and large-scale mechanized agriculture since the early 1980s. In this paper, we aim at doing more detailed analysis for the terrestrial features of deforestation and savannization in these areas, using by integrating remote sensing data with cattle ranching and cropland area data at municipal districts levels on a GIS platform. We clarify that the terrestrial features depended on an advance of cattle ranching and Corn production in northern part, Soybean production in central and west Mato Grosso and much agriculture and cattle business in the south using GIS and the 5-year Digital Vegetation Model Maps built for every 5-year period between 1981 and 2001 by NOAA/AVHRR multi-spectral data. This paper suggest clearly terrestrial features of deforestation and savannization in each municipal districts. Cattle ranchers or corn cropland in northwest Mato Grosso and soybean cropland in the central have been the main contributor to most of deforestation in tropical rainforests. And savannization by soybean cropland spread mainly in the west and by corn in the southeast. Corn productions have more savannization impacts than the soybean crop production. All these findings highlight the non-sustainable processes of resources development occurring not only in Mato Grosso state, but also over the all Amazonian tropical rainforests region.