This work aimed to characterize the forest cover of protected areas in the municipality of Três Rios, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. Five Environmental Protection Areas (EPA) were studied: Bemposta, Lago do Caça e Pesca, Santa-Fé and Vale do Morro da Torre EPAs; Encontro dos Três Rios Natural Monument; and Três Rios Municipal Natural Park. The database of Landsat 5-TM satellite, processed with software Erdas Imagine 9.2 and ArcGIS 10.0, were used for the location of forest fragments. We found 527 forest fragments, covering a total area of 7075.77 ha (26.88% of the protected areas). Bemposta Environmental Protection Area presents the highest percentage of forested area (31.21%). Três Rios Municipal Natural Park presents no forest fragments with at least 0.5 ha. The protected areas show a large number of relatively small forest fragments with irregular shapes and greatly isolated, which contributes to loss of biodiversity.
Environmental Protection Area; biodiversity; forest fragments; landscape; remote sensing