Discussions of Brazilian forest legislation have intensified in recent years and have led to the publication of a new Brazilian Forest Code. This study was a comparative analysis of Permanent Preservation Areas (PPAs) of farms located in Itu and Sarapuí, SP, according to Federal Law No. 12.651/12, Federal Law No. 4.771/65 and CONAMA Resolutions 302 and 303. We outlined the PPAs using topographic maps of the Institute of Geography and Cartography (IGC) in scale of 1:10,000, geo-referenced ortho-photo of 2005, scale 1:30,000, and field checks. The results showed that there was a reduction in the PPAs in the two properties, which was 20.97% to 17.81% of the total area of the property in Itu and 23.16% to 8.11% of the property in Sarapuí. The recent changes in the Brazilian Forest Code reduced PPAs in some landscape elements of the two properties. Also, there was fragmentation of a PPA in the vicinity of water courses on one of the properties. In general, the factors that contributed to this were the decrease in the width set for PPAs of water courses in consolidated areas, the exclusion of PPAs in intermittent springs and around ponds with surface areas smaller than one hectare.
environmental policy and legislation; rural properties; environmental suitability