Environmental and socioeconomic effectiveness of 20 years of the Programa de Adequação Ambiental e Agrícola (LERF/LCB/ESALQ/USP) in São Paulo State, Brazil

ABSTRACT

In the context of biological conservation, the high levels of environmental degradation has mainly originated from the historic expansion of the Brazilian agricultural frontier, phenomenon particularly intense in the Atlantic Forest. The Laboratório de Ecologia e Restauração Florestal of the Universidade de São Paulo has been developing, since 1998, the Programa de Adequação Ambiental e Agrícola de Propriedades Rurais (PAAA). The research’s goal was to evaluate the environmental and socioeconomic effectiveness of the developed program, identifying its main successes and failures. After evaluating the program, it was established that it has obtained several environmental and socioeconomic benefits, such as the production from 60,000 to 300,000 seedlings, the generation of 106 jobs and the annual donation of 16,000 to 120,000 seedlings per program. The results of the evaluated PAAA can be used as a subsidy to strengthen the pressure for the creation of public policies to enhance the agricultural and environmental regularization actions in the State of São Paulo and in rural properties located in other States of Brazil.

Keywords:
ecology; environmental planning; forest code; forest restoration; protected areas