## 4 Discussion  
The Effect of Changes in Land Use and Land Cover on Indigenous Lands, Protected Areas and Other Important Areas of Conservation  
In general, the land use and land cover classifications using the MCD12Q1 product showed good accuracy for the BLA over the years studied. Studies report its high accuracy in classifying land use and land cover, mainly for relatively stable classes such as water and forests [41; 54; 55; 56; 57]. The reduction observed in the forest classes, EBF, WSV and SV, was from 67.28%, 4.38%, 16.24%, in 2009 to 65.96%, 4.38%, 15.51%, in 2019, respectively, while anthropized areas, such as GL and CL, increased from 8.53% and 0.92%, in 2009, to 10.05% and 1.22%, in 2019, respectively, possibly characterizing deforestation [85]. The EBF was observed in the center, west and north of the Legal Amazon. As it is the largest type of forest in the BLA, the EBF class represents an important carbon sink [4; 86; 41]. This class is also known as Dense Ombrophylous Forest or Tropical Pluvial Forest [87], is the main phyto-physiognomy of the Amazon biome, and occurs in tropical, or even equatorial, areas where high rainfall is regularly distributed throughout the year [49; 51; 52; 87]. This type of forest is mainly preserved over Indigenous Lands (IL) and Protected Areas (PA) in the region [2; 25; 27; 29; 29]. The indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon cover 27% of the area with forests, are home to 173 ethnic groups and are fundamental for the physical and sociocultural reproduction of indigenous peoples, in addition to being important areas for the conservation of regional and global biodiversity [2; 25]. In addition, IL and PA correspond to half of the total forest area of the BLA, playing important roles in forest and biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation [2; 26; 27]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Classes**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**GPP**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**CO\({}_{2}\)Flux**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Rainfall**} \\ \cline{2-10}  & **[PERSON]** & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Z**} & **[PERSON]** & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Mann-Kendall**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Z**} & **[PERSON]** & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**[PERSON]**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Z**} & **[PERSON]** \\ \hline
**EBF** & 0.07 * & 1.80 & 0.04 ** & 0.24 & \(-1.18\) & 0.56 & 0.56 & 0.58 & 0.79 \\
**DBF** & 0.58 & 0.55 & 0.42 & 0.64 & \(-0.46\) & 1.00 & 0.60 & 0.52 & 0.41 \\
**MF** & 0.44 & 0.77 & 0.01 ** & 0.54 & \(-0.61\) & 0.80 & 0.76 & 0.30 & 0.13 \\
**WSV** & 0.29 & 1.06 & 0.28 & 0.92 & 0.10 & 1.00 & 0.21 & \(-1.27\) & 0.73 \\
**SV** & 0.94 & 0.07 & 1.00 & 0.28 & \(-1.07\) & 0.86 & 0.66 & \(-0.43\) & 1.00 \\
**GL** & 0.63 & 0.48 & 0.83 & 0.59 & \(-0.54\) & 1.00 & 0.19 & \(-1.30\) & 0.19 \\
**CL** & 0.22 & 1.22 & 0.10 & 0.39 & \(-0.86\) & 0.52 & 0.41 & 0.83 & 0.31 \\
**PW** & 0.74 & \(-0.33\) & 1.00 & 0.97 & \(-0.04\) & 1.00 & 0.34 & \(-0.95\) & 1.00 \\
**UBL** & - & - & - & 0.12 & 1.55 & 0.47 & 0.76 & 0.30 & 0.78 \\
**WB** & - & - & - & 0.76 & \(-0.30\) & 1.00 & 0.58 & \(-0.56\) & 0.65 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* *, ** and **: significant at 10, 5 and 1% probability by Mann-Kendall and Pettitt tests.  
\end{table} 
Table 4: \(p\)-value for the Mann-Kendall and Pettitt tests for GPP, CO\({}_{2}\)Flux and Rainfall variables in the BLA, grouped by land use and land cover. In Brazil, deforestation rates, and consequent changes in land use and land cover in forest areas protected by IL and PA are up to ten times lower than in areas without environmental protection. This is because these areas have greater forest cover and lower deforestation pressure compared to areas without environmental protection, which tend to have high deforestation pressures [2]. Similar to the EBF class, the SV and WSV represent the main phyto-physiognomies of the Cerrado biome [49,87] and both have suffered a reduction of 68,186.11 km\({}^{2}\).