Multifuncionalidade do meio rural: onde conciliar produção e conservação nas paisagens de Minas Gerais?

Abstract

Agricultural production is essential to satisfy human needs, and so is the conservation of native vegetation, which is responsible for the provision of several ecosystem services. As the availability of land is finite and the uses are potentially conflicting, it is necessary to find ways to reconcile these activities, in order to guarantee the sustainability of rural landscapes. Thus, this work aims to: 1) characterize the municipalities of Minas Gerais regarding their capacity to support productive and / or conservationist functions and 2) map the areas where it is possible and desirable for conservation and production functions, namely through the implementation of agroforestry systems (SAFs), be reconciled in the municipalities of Minas Gerais. To characterize and quantify the productive and conservation functions of the municipalities, criteria were defined and weighted for each function. The agricultural productive diversity of each municipality was also calculated. In order to estimate where it is possible to reconcile the two functions, a spatially explicit model was developed for the allocation of agroforestry systems - AFSs, in order to determine which areas are most favorable to their implementation according to socioeconomic and environmental criteria. The results of the analysis of the productivist and conservationist functions show that in 185 of the 853 municipalities (21.7%) the two functions (productivist and conservationist) are above the median value; in 242 of the municipalities the conservation function predominates; in 242 the productivist predominates and in 184 both functions are below the median value. Regarding the diversity of agricultural production, 76.3% municipalities were classified as having high and very high productive diversity (in relation to the planted area). Regarding areas favorable to the implementation of AFSs, the results show that 13.4% of Minas Gerais territory has a high and very high favorability. The results generated allow the public authorities to establish policies to carry out integrated landscape management, in order to develop strategies for the implementation of agroforestry systems in the state. This can bring benefits both to the environment and to society as a whole. The study done is original because it went beyond the local scale and used the landscape approach to allocate favorable areas to the implementation of AFSs. This work presents an important question that is object of research all over the world, making an analysis on a state scale that has been little performed.