Contribui o dos assentamentos rurais no desmatamento da Amaz nia: um olhar sobre o Estado do Pará

The colonization of land in the Amazon region for purposes of agrarian reform, promoted by the government as a social policy throughout history rather than a policy of land redistribution, has caused environmental consequences in various areas of development that need to be further explored. In order to support this argument through the environmental prism, we used the GIS analysis. As a measure of environmental impact, it was assessed the deforestation dynamics in 15% of federal settlements in the state of Pará for five years. The results showed proportionally more deforestation inside the settlements than in the restricted area. However, the rate of increase in deforestation over the years is lower within the settlements, if we exclude the areas protected by the state. The study points to possible causes that contribute to the trend of deforestation within the settlements. Factors such as economic vulnerability, the delay in the release of rural financing, land uncertainties, size of lots and logging in fictitious settlements, some are appointed as determinants of the observed pattern.