Impactos da paisagem na saúde humana e investimentos em unidades de conservação: contribuições para políticas públicas

Abstract

Human development causes drastic landscape changes, generating loss of ecosystem services and impacts on human health, compromising the conservation of biodiversity. The main objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the nature's contributions to people's mental and respiratory health, as well as the impact of landscape changes caused by urbanization and mining, in the region of Iron Quadrangle, Minas Gerais (MG). In addition, comparing the value of these benefits with federal government investments in Protected Areas (PAs) in MG. Mining activities were associated with higher rates of hospitalization for respiratory diseases, while urban forests reduced these rates for certain segments of the population. Urbanization also seems to contribute to lower hospitalization rates for respiratory diseases, which could be associated with greater access to prophylactic measures. However, municipalities with greater urbanization had higher hospitalization rates for mental and behavioral disorders. In order to assess how the Brazilian federal government has historically invested funds in PAs, our best instrument for biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation, we obtained budget data between 2008 and 2019 from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) for each of the federal PAs of MG State. We observed a drastic reduction in the federal budget of 2019 for these PAs, of around 73% compared to 2018. The annual investment values found for 2019 (R$ 0.33/ha - Sustainable Use PAs and R$ 4.71/ha - Strict Protection PAs) are, respectively, 370 and 26 times lower than the contribution of urban forests to the respiratory health of the population, valued in the present study in R$ 123/ha. In order to account for the benefits of nature and the depreciation of natural capital in cost-benefit analyzes for decision-making on whether or not to undertake the venture, it is important to create a Regulatory Instrument that requires Environmental Liability Studies to be undertaken at the beginning of the Environmental Licensing process.