Spatio-temporal assessment of selective logging in Pará state, Brazil

Abstract

Detecting and monitoring selectively logged forests can improve the scientific knowledge related to the effects of forest degradation in tropical forests and support the environmental law enforcement of controlling and monitoring those forest activities in the Amazon region. In this study, we analyzed the spatial and temporal dynamics of forests disturbed by selective logging in Pará state, Brazil, using a time series (1992 to 2018) of Landsat images and remote sensing techniques. Forests affected by those activities were mapped using visual interpretation and semi-automatic remote sensing techniques. The results of this study showed that approximately 20% of the forests selectively logged for timber purposes were deforested in the studied area and period. We observed that the total area of forests altered by selective logging exceeded the deforested area in some years of this analysis. There was an increase in selectively logged forests within protected areas (Conservation Units and Indigenous Lands) between 1992 and 2018. Most of the selectively logged forests were spatially located in the region known as the arc of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. More recently, forests impacted by those activities have been detected in the new deforestation frontiers in western Pará.