Identificação de áreas prioritárias para o incremento da conectividade florestal por técnicas de geoprocessamento do Programa de Conservação do Bugio-ruivo, Joinville, SC

Forest fragmentation threatens the loss of biodiversity, making forest ecosystems vulnerable by compromising resilience. The Atlantic Forest biome is one of the most degraded areas, since its area covers many populous cities, close to the coast. Forest connectivity is a tool that guarantees the continuity of the forest by means of ecological corridors. In this context, the proposal of an ecological corridor by the Southern brown howler monkey Conservation Program in Joinville/SC, Brazil, aims to connect the conservation units (UCs) of the region through fluxes of the populations of Alouatta clamitans around the Perini’s condominium location. The methodology used geoprocessing techniques and geographic information systems supported by the weighted linear combination technique. The main land covers found were: forest (33%), pastures and/or spare areas (29%), built-up areas – anthropized (24%) and agriculture (8%). An area of 7,587 ha was classified into five priority categories, from which the high and very high categories represent up to the 52.4% of the surface. These priority categories were not identified near the Morro do Iririú and Morro do Finder (surrounding urban areas). Accordingly, three main flux paths were highlighted, all of them within anthropized areas, pastures and/or spare areas, and forest. This study remarks the difficulty of implementing an ecological corridor through urban areas. Another relevant point raised was that the link between UCs cross roads of high and medium road traffic.