Indicadores socieconômicos e criação de áreas naturais protegidas em Minas Gerais

Nature Protection Areas (NPA) are important in the modern world, although still created with no well-defined criteria, overall in state and municipal spheres. In addition, there are no consistent information on the existence or factors that influence the creation and distribution of these areas. The present work had the objectives of identifying the Nature Protection Areas in Minas Gerais, Brazil, considering the municipalities and their mesoregions; perform a space-temporal analysis of the NPAs in Minas Gerais; relate the existence of NPAs with the Municipal Human Development Index (MHDI) and the municipal Gini Index (GI); relate the existence of NPA with the space-temporal and population density of each municipality; relate the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with the presence of NPAs; relate the existence of NPAs with the occurrence of preservation areas in municipalities within the Atlantic Forest Biome; and verify the influence of the Ecological Sales and Services Tax (Ecological ICMS) institute over the creation of municipal NPAs in Minas Gerais. To reach these objectives, we researched databases, governmental websites, contacted managers and sent questionnaires to the 853 municipalities of Minas Gerais. After tabulating the data, statistical tests were applied to verify possible correlations. The results showed that the state has 9.26% of its territory protected, with the predominance of units of Sustainable Use, especially Environmental Protection Areas, which constitute 69.9% of this area. Only 1.96% of the territory are protected by Integral Protection (IP). We found no correlation between MHDI and the presence of NPAs. However, we verified that municipalities with IP units present higher GI when compared to the others, suggesting that the presence of this conservation unit (CU) model may be associated to social inequality. The results also showed a higher concentration CU in regions that use little of its natural resources as main economic basis and in municipalities with higher GDP. We also registered a positive correlation between the size of the municipalities, of the mesoregions, preserved area of the Atlantic Forest and population density. The Ecological ICMS did not contribute for a better IP in the state and, currently, does not represent an incentive to the creation of CU in Minas Gerais, even in the case of Environmental Protection Areas. This work registered a high degree of vulnerability if the protection system in this state, based on low restriction conservation units.

Ativação da ligação c-h no metano por espécies MOm n+ (M = Nb, Fe; m = 0, 1; n = 0, 1, 2): estrutura eletrônica, mecanismo de reação e reatividade

The need for renewal and a more efficient use of energy resources has provided an increased interest in studies of methane activation processes in the gas phase by transition metal oxides. In this respect, the present work is an effort to assess , by means of a computational standpoint, the reactivity of NbOm n+ and FeOm n+ (m = 1, 2, n = 0, 1, 2) oxides in the activation process of the methane C-H bond, which corresponds to the first rate limiting step in the process of converting methane to methanol. These oxides are chosen, primarily, because the iron oxides are the most experimentally studied, and iron ions are more abundant in biological mediums. The main motive for choosing niobium oxides is the abundance of natural reserves of this mineral in Brazil (98%), especially in Minas Gerais. Initially, a thorough investigation was conducted, using different theoretical methods, to analyze the structural and electronic properties of the investigated oxides. Based on these results, the most reliable methodology was selected to investigate the activation process of the methane C-H bond by the series of iron and niobium oxides, considering all possible reaction mechanisms known to activate the C-H bond of alkanes. It is worth noting that, up to this moment and to our knowledge, there are no papers, in literature , investigating and comparing all the mechanisms considered in this work. I n general, the main results obtained show different catalytic tendencies and behaviors throughout the series of monoxides and dioxides of iron and niobium. An important and common result found in the two studies is that the increase in the load on the metal center and the addition of oxygen atoms to the metal, clearly favor the initial thermodynamics of the reaction, i.e., favor the approach of the metal center to methane, distorting its electron cloud and, thereby, decreasing its inertia. Comparing the two sets of oxides, we conclude that the iron oxides are the most efficient in activating the methane C-H bond. Among the iron oxides investigated, FeO + showed better kinetic and thermodynamic performance in the reaction with methane, while from the niobium oxides and ions NbO 2+ and NbO2 2+, showed better catalytic efficiency in the activation of the methane C-H bond.