The cacao monoculture and the atlantic forest biome in the municipality of Gandu, baixo sul baiano

Abstract

The present research aims to study the analysis of the presence of the cocoa crop in the municipality of Gandu, in Bahia's Southern Lowlands, and its interaction with the permanence and use of the dense ombrophile forest, which dominates the Atlantic Forest biome. As a methodology, theoretical and empirical surveys were carried out on phytophysiognomic diversity, land use and some species of the Atlantic Forest biome, in addition to cocoa cultivation, according to the conceptions of several authors from different areas of science. Interviews and questionnaires were carried out on the relationship between cocoa production and the forest, field visits to cocoa farms, photographs of the forest, of cocoa cultivation in the municipality and also the identification of species with higher incidence in the landscape, collection of information in a letter topographic and thematic maps of the environment and use of satellite images provided by Google. The results obtained show that most interviewees say that there has been degradation in the vegetation cover of the biome in the last decades, the vast majority of the surveyed public affirms the influence of the witches' broom pest with environmental degradation, they also claim to have worked in cocoa plantations and having contact with genetically modified seedlings, the overwhelming majority claim that the preservation of the forest is associated with the cultivation of cocoa, and that without it, the devastation of the forest was greater for the implantation of other crops such as livestock, bananas and subsistence crops during the broom season -of-witch. The fieldwork, together with the satellite images, show that the forest is quite altered, consisting of several stages of ecological succession, called capoira, capoira and capoeirão and more or less preserved fragments of the native ombrophilous forest in mountainous areas. Exotic shading (cacao-cabruca) is still widely used and considered a sustainable practice. It is concluded that the relationship between cocoa culture and dense rainforest is a common practice and has increased after the partial elimination of witches' broom and genetically modified cocoa seedlings.

DOI: 10.56238/pacfdnsv1-040