Characterization of Forest Cover of Protected Areas of the Atlantic Forest

This work aimed to characterize the forest cover of protected areas in the municipality of Três Rios, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. Five Environmental Protection Areas (EPA) were studied: Bemposta, Lago do Caça e Pesca, Santa-Fé and Vale do Morro da Torre EPAs; Encontro dos Três Rios Natural Monument; and Três Rios Municipal Natural Park. The database of Landsat 5-TM satellite, processed with software Erdas Imagine 9.2 and ArcGIS 10.0, were used for the location of forest fragments. We found 527 forest fragments, covering a total area of 7075.77 ha (26.88% of the protected areas). Bemposta Environmental Protection Area presents the highest percentage of forested area (31.21%). Três Rios Municipal Natural Park presents no forest fragments with at least 0.5 ha. The protected areas show a large number of relatively small forest fragments with irregular shapes and greatly isolated, which contributes to loss of biodiversity.