Deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon: a discriminant analyses

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to identify the variables that separate, in the best possible way, the municipalities with a low deforestation rate (Group 1) from those with a high rate (Group 2). Hence, ten variables of a sample containing 585 municipalities from the Brazilian Legal Amazon were used. As an analytical model, Discriminant Analysis was used. The obtained results led us to conclude that of the ten variables, three of them are the main ones to discriminate Group 1 from Group 2. These variables are: wood price, cattle herd and wood extraction.