Examining fragmentation and loss of primary forest in the southern Bahian Atlantic forest of Brazil with radar imagery

The Atlantic rainforest of southern Babia is one of the last remnants of th e lowland forest of eastern Brazil that once covered The entire coastal are a from Rio Grande do Norte to Rio Grande do Sul (lat 8 degrees 28 degreesS) and bas been deforested to a small fraction of its original cover (1-12%). All recent vegetation surveys have been based on optic il satellite data, which is hampered by cloud cover and by southern Bahia's intricate mix of f orest patches with other tree crops, especially cocoa. We describe the appl ication of radar remote-sensing data to distinguish forest patches from coc oa planted in the shade of natural-forest trees, Radar, unlike optical sens ors, is not obstructed by cloud cover and can acquire information about-for est structure by penetrating into the vegetation canopy The vegetation map generated from radar data clearly separates forest patches based on the deg ree of structural disturbance such as the density of shaded trees, the open ness of the canopy, and the density of the monodominant Erythyrina shaded t rees. The structural classification based on the radar data, and shown on t he map, can help researchers assess the degree of fragmentation of the orig inal Atlantic coastal forest and delineate areas of less disturbance with h igher potential for conservation of biodiversity. This information can then be applied to conservation planning, especially the design and monitoring of nature reserves and the modeling of biological corridors.