A produção da palma de óleo e o impacto no uso da terra em regiões produtivas na Amazônia: Uma abordagem geoeconômica

Abstract

Pará stands out as the largest producer of oil palm in Brazil, the expansion of oil palm in the state is taking place mainly in the microregion of Tomé-Açu, The present study aims to verify the transformations in land use with the expansion of oil palm cultivation through the geoprocessing technique in the microregion of Tomé-Açu, specifically, to analyze whether the expansion of palm production and planted area in this microregion has caused a reduction in the cultivation of other agricultural activities and to ascertain whether the growth of oil palm in this region can cause ecological problems, including deforestation, this is how methodologically it was used, the transition data from MAPABIOMAS for a 37-year time series, for the period 1985 to 2022, classes were adopted for a better understanding of the differences in land occupation between the transition periods, adopting 4 classes, for a better visualization of land occupation, maps of land cover were constructed using 7 classes. The results show that the change in land use occurred, as it was possible to detect the reduction of some crops in the micro-region of Tomé-Açu, that is, the crops that stood out for many years in this region began to give way to the expansion of oil palm, this change prevailed after the creation of the PNPB and PSOP. Regarding the conversion process, it was possible to detect that the growth of oil palm cultivation occurs mainly due to the replacement of pastures by this activity, the change in land use is evident after the creation of the PNPB and PSOP, the forest class has ceded more area for pasture for almost four decades. It is noted that the process of forest conversion takes stages, initially with the suppression of vegetation for the formation of pastures. In a second moment, part of these pasture areas that are in more favorable geographical or structural conditions are then converted to oil palm cultivation, in this context, it is possible that indirect land use is taking place in the Tomé-Açu micro-region, where pasture continues to grow over the forest, causing direct deforestation and oil palm becomes an indirect deforester. It is concluded that the main objective was achieved, since the relationship between the change in land use and occupation and the expansion of oil palm was demonstrated over 37 years of transition, from the data analysis it was possible to detect the years that caused the oil palm boom in the five municipalities of the Tomé-Açu microregion.