A multiscale analysis of land use dynamics in the buffer zone of Rio Doce State Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

This article uses a multiscale approach for assessing landscape changes in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots in Brazil, the Rio Doce State Park (PERD). In this article, we assess land use changes over a 30 year period. Our results show that, while inside the park landscape changes were minimal, in the park buffer zone human induced changes are steadily rising due to an increase in eucalyptus plantations and urban sprawl that grew by 4% and 1.9%, respectively. Agricultural land has been reduced by 6.35%, but there are trends that a form of welcome forest transition has been occurring. We report an increase in native forests from 40,588 ha in 1985 to 45,690 ha in 2015. The analysis of human impacts in the study area delivers very different results when varying the pixel size from 25 ha to 900 m2. The former shows a very high level of human influence while the latter reveals small but vital patches of native forest offering hopeful opportunities for sustainable natural resource management in this critical biome. Our work stresses the importance of better targeted policy making and sympathetic land use management of buffer zones of protected areas. Currently, such zones suffer from many development pressures and often experience contradictory policy frameworks which encourage a clash between biodiversity conservation and intensive agro husbandry production.Highlights:• We characterize land use transitions in a hotspot of biodiversity in Brazil.• Analysis at finer resolution show that there is still hope for forest recovery.• For instilling sustainable forest transitions there is the need for fresh governance.