Effectiveness of land cover regulations for biodiversity conservation: a remote sensing and landscape simulation study in a mountain range in Southeastern Brazil

The Tropical Forest of Southeast Brazil is presently highly degraded as consequence of intense land cover change that took place in the past few centuries. Most of its cover is now reduced to sparsely distributed forest fragments which implies in serious threat to the existence of plant and wildlife populations that depend on this habitat. In order to alleviate such threat the connectivity among these isolated forest patches should be increased by the restoration of the natural vegetation in areas between patches. The Brazilian Forest Protection Act (FPA) was created in 1965 as a legal apparatus to protect natural vegetation cover and to reduce the impact of deforestation in water availability and quality. However the proper observation of the criteria for land cover protection stated in the FPA can also improve connectivity of the vegetation cover. This work presents an example of the usefulness of the FPA in improving the connectivity of forest cover between two large Conservation Units (The Itatiaia National Park and the Campos do Jorda˜o State Forest) with the application of remote sensing techniques for the diagnosis of the present status of the spatial distribution of the vegetation cover and the use of geographic information system for the determination of areas under the protection of the FPA.