The study objectives were to elaborate a forest fragment diagnosis, at a landscape level, and to identify the eventual occurrence of land use conflicts in permanent preservation areas. The study was divided into three stages along the surrounding area of Caparaó National Park, in areas belonging to the Alto Jequitibá, Alto Caparaó, Caparaó and Espera Feliz counties. The first stage involved the forest fragment mapping and its landscape analysis that included characteristics such as: area, perimeter
and shape. The second stage corresponded to the automatic delineation of permanent preservation areas (PPAs) and the forest cover analysis within these areas, based on the brazilian forest code and CONAMA’s n° 303 resolution. The last stage was the land use/land cover mapping in the surrounding area of Espera Feliz county, Minas Gerais State. Geoprocessing techniques and a high resolution IKONOS II satellite image were utilized. The main results were: identification and analysis of 529 forest fragments; permanent preservation area delineation situated on slopes above 45, along the riparian zones with less than 10 meters in width, around the springs and their contribution areas, and on upper third of the hillsides, as well as the identification of land use conflicts. It was observed that 3.677,72 ha (15,04%) of the surrounding area, which is 25.174,84 ha, corresponded to forest fragments. The surrounding area belonging to the Alto Jequitibá county presented the largest forest cover area , with 19,28% (1.196,02 ha). It was also observed that 401 forest fragments (75,8%) have areas up to 5,0 ha, 311 (58,79%) presented elongated form, being under intense edge effects and only 2 fragments (0,38%) presented rounded forms with circularity indexes (CI) close to 1. The permanent preservation areas corresponded to 48,06% of the total area, from which the upper third of the hillsides occupied the largest extent with 6.031,54 ha (23,96%) while the smallest areas occurred in altitude superior to 1.800m, with only 8,42 ha (0,03%). The surrounding area belonging to the Caparaó county presented the largest area located in permanent preservation areas, corresponding to 50,14%. Analyzing the PPAs, it was observed that 9.606,80 ha (81,64%) are being affected for not having vegetation cover and only 18,36% are covered by vegetation. 1.517,00 ha, corresponding to 41,25% of the forest fragments mapped, are out of the PPAs. In the surrounding area belonging to the Espera Feliz county, 7 land use classes were mapped (coffee, pasture, forest fragments, dirty pasture, agricultural, anthropic area and rockies). From the total area of 6.279,72 ha, 80,27% corresponded to coffee and pasture, 14,20% to forest fragments and 5,53% to the other classes. In the analysis of land use conflicts, the coffee and pasture classes were the most frequent, occupying 1.449,34 ha (49,58%) and 802,28 (27,44%) of the PPAs, respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the forest fragments are being affected by the land use activities and that the permanent preservation areas are being occupied incorrectly, despite of environmental legislation.
