Amazon rainforest monitoring

This micro-site aggregates data on deforestation in the Amazon from several sources. The most timely data comes from Brazil: specifically Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and Imazon, a Brazilian NGO.

Narrative context on these issues can be found at Mongabay’s Amazon rainforest section as well as Mongabay’s regular news reporting on the Amazon in English, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish. Recent headlines from these sites can be found at the bottom of this page.

Sections

This site is organized into sections:

Annual data

Annual deforestation in the legal Amazon since 1988, according to INPE's PRODES system. Note: 2023 data is preliminary.
Annual deforestation in the legal Amazon since 1988, according to INPE’s PRODES system. Note: 2023 data is preliminary.

Recent news on monitoring deforestation in the Amazon rainforest

English

  • Loggers and carbon projects forge odd partnerships in the Brazilian Amazon
    on December 9, 2024 at 12:04 am

    - Mongabay examined four REDD+ projects in Pará state and found that all were developed in partnership with sawmill owners with a long history of environmental fines.- The projects were developed by Brazil’s largest carbon credit generator, Carbonext, a company linked to a major fraud involving REDD+ projects and illegal loggers in Amazonas state.- According to experts, REDD+ projects may have become a new business opportunity for individuals who have profited from deforestation for decades.

  • ‘Bear’s-eye camera’ reveals elusive Andean bear cannibalism and treetop mating
    on December 6, 2024 at 6:26 pm

    - Scientists captured the first-ever camera collar footage of wild Andean bears, revealing unprecedented behaviors, including canopy mating and cannibalism.- The research team, led by Indigenous researcher Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, successfully tracked a male bear for four months in Peru’s challenging cloud forest terrain.- The footage challenges previous assumptions about Andean bears being solitary vegetarians and shows them behaving more like other bear species.- While the bears face mounting threats from climate change and human conflict, researchers are combining scientific study with community education to protect them.

  • Climate financing should come from oil and gas ‘super’ profits, study says
    on December 2, 2024 at 8:37 pm

    - Oil and gas companies have the ability to become a significant source of climate financing, a new study in Climate Policy argues.- The study looked at oil and gas profits from 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine spiked energy prices across the globe, boosting realized companies’ earnings by 65%, or around $495 billion.- If governments had imposed an additional 30% tax on the profits of private oil and gas companies, it would have raised $147 billion, the study said.- Climate financing was the focus of the COP 29 climate conference, which only managed to come up with $300 billion in annual support for developing countries.

  • ‘Trump is a disease’, says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa
    on December 2, 2024 at 2:18 pm

    - In addition to being a shaman, Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and a political leader active in denouncing the gold miners who illegally invaded the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon.- The Yanomami, who inhabit Brazil’s largest Indigenous Land, still face a humanitarian and health crisis, worsened by the invasion of 70,000 illegal miners. Increased under the Jair Bolsonaro government, the invasion brought diseases and contaminated rivers with mercury. - In this interview, Kopenawa criticizes the environmental and social impacts of administrations led by politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.

  • Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
    on November 29, 2024 at 11:27 pm

    - Xingu Indigenous Park and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory in Brazil cover an area larger than Belgium.- The Indigenous territories are still largely covered in primary forest, and a haven for wildlife in a region considered an agricultural powerhouse.- Satellite data show Xingu Indigenous Park lost 15% of its primary forest cover, and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory lost 8.3% of its forest cover, between 2002 and 2023.- Indigenous groups fear proposed transportation projects will bring a fresh wave of deforestation and open up their territories to invaders.

Spanish

Amazonia

Brazilian Portuguese

Amazonia