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영어

We identified the main impacts, drivers, and restoration projects for Atlantic Forest in Northwest of the Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The objective was to analyze the quantity, distribution, and causes of the environmental crimes in 2000-2014. To verify differences between degraded and restored areas, we performed a t-test; ANOVA for the municipalities with more quantity of crimes, simple linear regression analysis for the relationship between sizes of degraded areas and quantity of seedlings planted, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for environmental damages categories and population of the municipalities. The main environmental damages found were deforestation outside permanent preservation area (20%) and those related to Permanent Preservation Area (37%). Environmental crimes in these areas fall into two categories: native and exotic vegetation removal (17%), and impediment to natural regeneration (20%). The average size of the degraded areas was 5,359±526 m2, while for restored areas was 3,337±255 m2. The sizes of the degraded fragments were similar among the five municipalities with the higher number of environmental crimes (ANOVA: p＞0.05, F=1.24; df=241). The number of seedlings planted was positively related to the sizes of the degraded fragments (p＜0.001, R2=0.53). Segregation between the less and the most populous municipalities was found with the PCA analysis along PC1 (51.7%), while PC2 represented 19.2% of the total variation. The most populous municipalities showed the highest number of environmental crimes, and the majority of degraded areas were recovered by planting native seedlings. Atlantic Forest fragments need to be recognized and preserved as an ecosystem with a unique ecological function by the population and public administration.