A palma de dendê e o uso da terra na Amazônia: impactos e oportunidades para conservação

Abstract

Biofuels are one of the energy source possibilities to reduce GHG and mitigate climate change impacts. In Brazil, palm oil crops, among rapeseeds, have been targeted as the great promise to include family farming in large scale production of biodiesel. Palm oil is produced than any other the most traded oil in the world and, despite the small expression in the world palm oil production, Brazil has followed the global trend and doubled its production area during the period 2001-2009, when the global demand increased and several government incentives for palm oil were created. While Brazilian government predicts major expansion on the next few years, increasing oil palm demand and the land conversion for those crops might lead to habitat loss and might have a large impact on biological diversity. The purpose of this study is therefore to discuss the sustainability of palm oil crops and determine their main impacts of expansion and its relation to natural ecosystems in Amazon. To understand where the land use change impacts are, the historical survey of palm land crops in 5 main producers municipalities in Belem Endemism Center was held using satellite images (Landsat/PRODES) and data of Agricultural Census (IBGE), as also to identify forested and other agricultural areas in the region. Based on our results, the expansion of palm oil in northeastern Pará is recent and has occurred mainly in the municipalities of Moju and Tailândia, driven by the arrival of new companies and expansion of the existing ones, especially led by the company Biopalma Vale. Between 1998-2000 palm oil crops have led removal of vegetation, but they are not currently a source of deforestation in the region anymore. However, we highlight some suggestions in order to palm oil does not become again another deforestation pressure on the Amazon rainforest: to invest in environmental regularization of properties lacking CAR, since they were responsible for the highest rates of forest converted into palm oil crops; to strengthen policies designed specifically for palm oil as the palm oil zoning regulation; and to invest in increasing productivity by agricultural technology, which might reduce the need for new lands. Other measures such as certification initiatives (eg RSPO) and large companies tracking of suppliers also have shown themselves important and potentially effective for the reduction of deforestation not only in Brazil but in all other producing countries.