AGROPECUÁRIA RONCADOR LTDA

In May 2021, following a judicial dispute initiated in 1994, Roncador lost to INCRA the ownership and possession over 4,500 hectares of native forest so far included as part of Roncador’s farm. Less than a year later, the area was subject to significant deforestation carried out by a neighboring settlement as way to claim ownership over the land for productive use or land speculation. The case highlighted the importance of supporting the private sector in its endeavor to protect natural forests, which can otherwise result in illegal land grabbing.

Although the transaction’s impact was largely based on production intensification, it also offered an amount of native forest protected in addition to the requirements of the Forest Code. The loss of 4,500 hectares of forest meant that the total forested areas of Roncador has been reduced from 71,184 to 66,684 hectares. The Legal Reserve required (in accordance with the Forest Code and as submitted to SEMA in the farm’s CAR – pending validation) is 66,078 hectares; the reduction of the total forested areas therefore does not affect Roncador’s compliance with the Forest Code and the company still demonstrates a minor excess of 600 hectares against the legal requirements.

In 2021, several fire alerts were registered inside Roncador’s farm boundaries and riparian areas. Of particular significance was a fire inside Roncador’s farm in September 2021 caused by lighting in a dry pasture area. The fire has been estimated to have affected some 200 hectares of forest. Roncador identified the fires through its fire alerts* and monitoring systems. Operations to extinguish the fires were largely driven by the company itself through its own fire brigade and staff, using planes, drones, and by foot. Over one hundred employees were ultimately needed to fight the fire, which was extinguished five days later.

Fire activity in Mato Grosso, as in other areas of Brazil, is influenced by several factors: from climatic conditions (the typical dry season in Mato Grosso is from May to September) to land use change (conversion of forest to agriculture). Fires can be a consequence of natural causes, lightning being the most common, or human actions, usually associated to bad land management practices, such as burning for land clearing, increasing soil fertility or reducing pests. Fires impact largely depends on the access, logistics and management capacity of local parties. Roncador has excellent fire management capabilities and allocated resources to put out fires but, as the past year has showed, fires remain a menace to the land.

Using our own technology, the &Green investment team was able to identify the fires on the same day as Roncador (i.e. immediately). &Green has access to daily high-resolution satellite imagery** and forest loss alerts**, which gives the possibility to track fire evolution and burned area at greater detail, allowing us and our clients to closely monitor deforestation events. Following the incident, &Green facilitated a GIS-focused workshop with Roncador to share tools and these best practices as to support their own capacity.

*Developed by the GLAD (Global Land Analysis and Discovery) lab at the University of Maryland. GLAD-S2 alerts utilize data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 mission, which provides optical imagery at a 10m spatial resolution with a 5-day revisit time.

** Images provided by the NICFI-KSAT Satellite Data Program Level 2 Access

***Imagery from MODIS Global Fires, a product of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data; and VIIRS Thermal Hotspots and Fire Activity, a product of NASA’s Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) Earth Observation Data, part of NASA’s Earth Science Data.

HIGH-RESOLUTION SATELLITE IMAGES ALLOWED &GREEN TO TRACK HOW THE FIRE EVOLVED ON RONCADOR’S FARM LAST SEPTEMBER: