A REVIEW OF RECENT LAND USE CHANGE DRIVEN BY SUGARCANE EXPANSION IN BRAZIL

摘要

One of the controversial aspects of adopting biofuels as a global warming mitigation strategy is theland use change (LUC) due to the expansion of feedstock production. Thus, the LUC due to the sugarcane expansionin Brazil in 1996-2012 was evaluated, using national statistics and remote sensing data. In this period, soybean wasthe major crop regarding expansion (13 Mha), while the cattle density increased from 0.86 to 1.08 heads per hectarein 1996-2006, which potentially released lands for agricultural expansion. In 2003-2012 sugarcane areas increasedmainly in Southeast, and more than half (2.6 Mha) of Brazilian sugarcane expansion took place in S?o Paulo state.Only few municipalities presented an increase of sugarcane area larger than 25,000 hectares. In Center-South region,and between 1995 and 2006, there was an increase in forest areas, except in Mato Grosso where 2.86 million hectareswere deforested; as sugarcane expansion was 0.1 Mha and crop expansion achieved 3.37 Mha, a conclusion is thatdeforestation can not be attributed to sugarcane expansion. The previous land uses in sugarcane expansion areas wereprimarily pastures and annual crops. Both remote sensing and survey-derived land use data provide evidence thatsugarcane expansion has not caused significant deforestation.