September 14, 2022

14:09

Karol Rocha – from Amazon Agency

MANAUS – If mining was released in protected areas in the Amazon, 183 square kilometers of forest would be degraded, according to a study published by Brazilian scientists in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability.

For the work, 242 mineral deposits in the National Reserve of Copper and Associated (Renca), located between the states of Amapá and Pará, were mapped by scientists in order to estimate the impact of creating new mines in the region. According to the survey, the scenario would also require 1,463km of new roads to facilitate access to the region, causing indirect deforestation and forest fragmentation.

The studies are by environmental engineer Juliana Siqueira-Gay. Researchers Jean Paul Metzger and Laura Sonter also contributed to the work. The study was supervised by Luis Enrique Sánchez, PhD in Natural Resources Economics and professor at the University of São Paulo.

Spatial Models

To simulate the expansion of mines and associated infrastructure, the group developed spatial models of land use change, including the Renca area and its surroundings, in a total of about 250 thousand square kilometers, which corresponds to 5% of the Legal Amazon territory.

To Agência Fapesp, researcher Juliana Siqueira-Gay said that one of the research innovations was the modeling of future impacts of possible new areas for mining and the infrastructure needed to reach them, such as road construction. She is the first author of the article that is part of her doctoral thesis defended at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (Poli-USP).

“We believe that discussions and proposals to reduce protected areas should consider the impact on the forest, its biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Therefore, the need to have a strategic planning for these cases”, he commented.

The work modeled five scenarios of mining expansion, for 30 years, in Renca. In none of the modeling scenarios was there a desirable conservation result, and all of them, to some extent, showed an increase in deforestation, loss of highly biodiverse areas and an increase in landscape fragmentation.

In some cases, according to the survey, a long and costly road network would be required, creating additional pressure to further open up protected areas and generating more forest fragmentation. “In the modeling, we use mineral deposits without dividing by ore types, so we don’t treat, in a differentiated way, a possible gold mining, for example. We know that there are already many deposits in the region and we cannot neglect that the construction of new roads would facilitate access even more”, said the researcher to Agência Fapesp.

Currently, nine Conservation Units cover 90% of the area of the reserve, being two Indigenous Lands (TIs), three areas of full protection and four of sustainable use. Mining is not legally allowed inside this territory and the protected areas that are in Renca.

The article Strategic planning to mitigate mining impacts on protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon, by researchers Juliana Siqueira-Gay, Jean Paul Metzger, Luis Enrique Sánchez and Laura Sonter, can be read at: www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00921-9#Ack1.