Deforestation in the Kayabi Indigenous Territory: Simulating and Predicting Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Brazilian Amazon

Land use/cover change practices in the Brazilian Amazon, such as cattle ranching, logging, agriculture, mining, and urbanization are the major contributors to deforestation and have major impacts on ecosystems and environmental processes at local, regional and global scales. A simulation of future landscape in the Kayabi Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon was carried out using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing and the IDRISI’s Land Change Modeler. The model was able to successfully simulate deforestation expansion in the region and identify the main landscape attributes driving anthropogenic disturbance expansion in the studied area. Distance from roads and distance from existing disturbance were found as the key factors driving deforestation in the Kayabi area