Atlantic Rain Forest, Environmental Protection Area of the North Coast, Vegetation Suppression, compensation areas.

The Atlantic Rain Forest, one of the richest biomes in biodiversity in the world, is threatened due to deforestation and fragmentation, requiring investments and conservation strategies to protect its native vegetation and associated ecosystems. The Environmental Protection Area of the North Coast of the State of Bahia (EPA/NC), mostly composed of this biome, is a conservation unit that allows human activities of different degrees of impact such as industries, mining and urbanization, and seeks to reconcile conservation with sustainable use of natural resources. In this context, this project aimed to form a database with all authorizations for the suppression of vegetation granted in urban areas and in the Atlantic Forest biome after the enactment of Law 11,428/2006, as well as to map all areas of environmental compensation. A survey of 152 Authorizations for Vegetation Suppression issued in the Atlantic Rain Forest Biome was runned, covering the municipalities included in the Environmental Protection Area of the North Coast of Bahia, with different successional stages and located in areas of marine plains and fluviomarine plains. Most of the processes (150 out of 152) received authorization for the suppression of native vegetation, one was canceled at the entrepreneur's request and another was rejected; from 102 processes that required compensation areas, in 5 cases the authorization conditioned the presentation of the area, while in 4 cases the location of the compensations was not specified; the study used the Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyze the spatial distribution of environmental compensation areas. Biodiversity conservation requires the integration of regulatory instruments, public policies, public-private partnerships and incentives for the preservation, forest restoration and establishment of biodiversity corridors, in addition to effective control and inspection, including the creation of protected areas and Private Reserves of the Natural Heritage (PRNHs), which act as connecting elements of the natural landscape and involve landowners in environmental conservation.