A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the environmental damages occurrences was conducted through the lawful documents established for charging at the State Prosecution Service of São Carlos city, State of São Paulo, during 1991 - 2000, to understand the relationship between environmental problems and the current development actions. The environmental damage identified were grouped into nine classes, where deforestation was prevailing in each year along the period of study. Of the total number of deforestation occurrences, 180 was related to areas smaller than 5 ha. It corresponded to 110.35 ha of the total deforested area. The other 37 were associated with areas higher than 5 ha, equivalent to 1,013.27 ha. The registers of environmental damages in the period in a rough estimate, corresponded to a mediam loss of 5.91 ± 4.14 ha/occurrence and of 112.36 ± 91.73 ha/year of deforested area.
Environmental damages; deforestation; lawful documents
