Brazil's native vegetation is more fragmented, MapBiomas shows
The country has 3.41 million vegetation fragments, 45% more than in 1986, and the average size of each fell 43%.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Brazil's native vegetation is divided into ever smaller and more isolated pieces, according to new MapBiomas data released on October 29 and reported by g1. In 2024, the country had 3.41 million fragments, 45% more than in 1986.
Over the same period, the average area of each fragment went from 287 to 163 hectares, a 43% drop. In practice, part of the remaining vegetation was left separated by pastures, crops or cities, which hinders the movement of animals and plants and increases exposure to fire and edge effects.
Minas Gerais, Bahia, Goiás, São Paulo and Paraná concentrate 49% of the fragments. MapBiomas stresses that this indicates a more divided landscape, not a larger preserved area. The North still holds the largest continuous areas; in Amazonas, each fragment averages about 4,000 hectares.
In 46% of municipalities, the average area is under 25 hectares, especially in the South and Southeast. São João de Meriti (RJ) has the smallest average, at 1.9 hectares. The Atlantic Forest has the largest number of fragments, 1.38 million, followed by the Cerrado, with 957,000.
In the Amazon, the number of fragments jumped from 144,000 to 519,000 since 1986, while the average area fell 76%. Between 10% and 24% of the country's native vegetation was exposed to some degradation factor in 2024.