Batistella, Mateus 
  
  
66° 64° 62° 60° 
ORTO VELH 
  
  
Machad 
    
ho d’Oeste 
      
  
  
Abuna Atiqugmes 
  
  
  
  
  
  
Guarajá-Mirin Ro nds 
11° 
Ru 
LT 
Vilhena 
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Pedras Negfas 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Figure 1. Machadinho d'Oeste and Vale do Anari municipalities on northeastern Rondónia, Brazilian Amazon. 
The original Machadinho' settlement had an area of 2,090 Km with 2,934 plots designated for landless small farmers 
from other states. In 1988, Machadinho became a municipality and expanded to incorporate four other settlements and 
small towns. In 1989, the rural population represented 2/3 of Machadinho's total population. Less then 10 years later, 
the rural population diminished to 1/3 of the total. The last Brazilian census recorded a total population of 28,949 
people, distributed between rural (7,317) and urban (21,632) (IBGE, 1996). This trend follows the recent process of 
urbanization in other areas of Rondónia, already described in the literature (Batista, 1999; Browder and Godfrey, 1997). 
Vale do Anari has a different story. Started by spontaneous colonization, the settlement was established by INCRA also 
in the early 1980's but with no assistance, urban infrastructure or administrative autonomy. The settlement was part of 
the municipalities of Machadinho (after 1988) and Jaru. In 1994, Anari became a municipality. This dynamic led to a 
completely different outcome in terms of the interactions between the colonists and the environment. Also, different 
institutional arrangements and rules for forest access are observed for the settlements under investigation. As an 
example, while Vale do Anari follows the 50% rule (50% of the property lot must be kept as forest), Machadinho's 
design includes 16 forest block reserves. 
The two sites are located approximately 400 km from Porto Velho, the capital of the State of Rondônia, between 9919' 
and 10°00' S latitude and 61?47' and 63"00' W longitude. Predominant vegetation cover is tropical rain forest. The rainy 
season lasts from November to April, with an annual mean precipitation of 2,000 mm. The dry season is well defined, 
lasting from June to September. The annual average temperature is 24? C and the moisture ranges from 80 to 85%. 
Several soil types were identified, mainly Alfisols, Oxisols, Ultisols, Alluvial soils and other less spatially represented 
associations (Miranda and Mattos, 1993). 
The majority of the colonists came from the south of Brazil, mainly the State of Paraná, bringing with them specific 
production systems. The result in terms of spatial organization of farming plots is a mosaic of pasturelands, perennial 
crops, mainly coffee and cocoa, and annual crops (corn, rice, and beans). Land cover characteristics are also defined by 
different stages of land occupation and secondary succession contrasting with the native rain forest. 
4. METHODS 
Methodological procedures included image processing and landscape indices calculation. Data was provided by the 
Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT), including a 1998 
LANDSAT TM scene and topographic maps of 1:100,000 scale. 
  
150 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 
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