Changes in forest cover and food security
Among the 525 municipalities that experienced net forest loss, deforestation averaged 4.04 ± 6.66% of the total vegetated area from 2006 to 2017. On the other hand, 616 municipalities had an increase in forest cover of 3.34 ± 3.22% in the same period. These values were surprisingly low but suggest small net loss of forest for the whole Caatinga. Only 19 municipalities experienced net forest gains greater than 10% while 39 lost more than 10% of forests between 2006 and 2017 (Fig. 2a). Regarding food security, 561 municipalities registered a decrease in food security while the remaining 580 improved this measure from 2006 to 2017. We found a large variability in food security change, that goes from small changes to three orders of magnitude (>32,000 %) of net gain or net loss (Fig. 2b). Overall, we found that 29% of the municipalities lost forest and gained food security (Fig. 3) between 2006 and 2017. These were followed by the municipalities that gained forest while losing food security (24 %). The worst scenario was registered for 25 % of the municipalities that lost both forest and food security in the time period. However, the optimal combination of gaining both forest cover and food security was registered in almost 22% of the municipalities (Fig. 3).