Monitoring deforestation in the Amazon

- Etelvina Ramos’ story encompasses the war in the Colombian Amazon. She grew up alongside coca crops, witnessed several massacres, and was displaced by violence due to the illicit, but profitable, crop.- Now, at 52 years old, she is fighting to replace coca.- Etelvina Ramos has a mission that is contrary to the interests of the drug trafficking industry: through her work in the Workers’ Association of Curillo (ASTRACUR), she is seeking the approval of a rural reserve. This would make it possible to close the pathway to coca production and illegal mining.- Due to her work as an environmental and land defender, she frequently faces threats by illegal armed groups. She admits that she has learned to live with the fear of death.

- Peru’s Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, considered one of the best-protected nature reserves in the world, has seen a spike in deforestation on its fringes from the expansion of illegal coca cultivation and mining, and new road construction.- The forest loss appears to be affecting the ancestral lands of several Indigenous communities, including the Harakbut, Yine and Matsiguenka peoples, according to a new report by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).- The report found that 19,978 hectares (49,367 acres) of forest have been cleared in the buffer of the reserve over the past two decades.- According to Indigenous leaders, the state is doing “practically nothing” to address deforestation drivers in the buffer zone, and they warn that if left unchecked, the activity will spread into the protected area itself.

- The number of fires shows no signs of easing as Brazil’s Roraima faces unprecedented blazes, and several Amazonian countries, including Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela, registered record-high outbreaks in the first quarter this year.- Fire outbreaks in primary (old-growth) forest in Brazil’s Amazon soared by 152% in 2023, according to a recent study, rising from 13,477 in 2022 to 34,012 in 2023.- Fires in the mature forest regions are the leading drivers of degradation of the Amazon Rainforest because the biome hasn’t evolved to adapt to such blazes, according to the researchers.- The fires are a result of a drought that has been fueled by climate change and worsened by natural weather phenomena, such as El Niño, which has intensified dry conditions already aggravated by high temperatures across the world, experts say.

- A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.- Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the deforestation is.- Experts say it’s best to go after environmental offenders where it hurts the most, by seizing their assets, rather than to chase down their true identity.- This investigation is part of a partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil.

- The state of Pará has created two new conservation areas along the Amazonian coastline, placing almost all of its mangroves under federal protection.- The two reserves mean that an additional 74,700 hectares (184,600 acres) have been included in the largest and most conserved continuous belt of mangroves on the planet.- The process to create the reserves took more than 13 years and faced several setbacks; the final outcome has been celebrated by environmentalists as a victory for local communities and biodiversity.- The new extractive reserves allow resident populations to engage in traditional and sustainable extractive practices such as fishing and hunting, while keeping out big businesses, such as commercial aquaculture or logging.

- Forest clearing detected by Brazil’s deforestation alert system fell to the lowest level in nearly five years.- According to data released last week by the country’s space agency, INPE, deforestation registered over the past twelve months amounts to 4,816 square kilometers, 53% below the level this time last year.- The drop in deforestation has occurred despite a severe drought affecting much of the Amazon basin.

- Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.- The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.- The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.

- Measures throughout 2023 to curb the illegal gold trade in Brazil led to a 20% drop in the country’s exports of the precious metal.- In Itaituba, the hub of the Amazon illegal gold trade, taxes from gold sales fell by more than 90% in just the first quarter of this year.- Experts attribute this drop to police raids on illegal mining operations and on requirements for sellers to issue electronic invoices.- But they warn the illegal gold still persists, shifting to unofficial channels to evade the eye of regulators.

- Environmental crimes like land grabbing, illegal deforestation, and poaching hinder climate action, deter investment in sustainable practices, and threaten biodiversity across major biomes worldwide.- Despite challenges such as vast territories difficult to police and weak rule of law, new technologies like geospatial and predictive analytics are being leveraged to enhance the detection and disruption of these activities.- Innovative approaches, including public-private partnerships and AI tools, show promise in improving real-time monitoring and enforcement, although they require increased investment and training to be truly effective, argue Robert Muggah and Peter Smith of Instituto Igarapé, a “think and do tank” in Brazil.- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

- Anna Roosevelt has been working in the Amazon for four decades and her pivotal research has changed the knowledge of the rainforest’s occupation.- In an interview with Mongabay, she explains how her research led to evidence of much older Amazon settlements than previously thought, challenging a decades-long scientific consensus about how Indigenous people related to the forest.- “One reason I was able to make some great discoveries is because of how opinionated archaeologists in the mid-20th century were. I only benefited from their mistakes,” she said.- Roosevelt said the recent hype regarding the “garden cities” in Ecuador is “annoying”, as it is not a new discovery and it ignores older research from Latin American archaeologists.