Deforested and degraded land available for the expansion of palm oil for biodiesel in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper maps the availability of deforested and degraded land in the state of Para in the eastern Amazon and discusses the feasibility of using this land for the expansion of palm crops for biodiesel production. The ultimate objective is to highlight land that is suitable for palm oil and its availability/distribution, so that the palm oil expansion envisaged by the Brazilian Government's Sustainable Palm Oil Program can be achieved in a sustainable way. The analysis is developed with the support of geoprocessing techniques that pull data together from different sources, including the Agroecological Zoning (ZAE) developed for palm oil in Brazil and degraded land data. The analysis identifies some of the challenges faced when planning and monitoring the expansion of palm oil in the Amazon, including the need for an operational concept to identify and use degraded land. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.