As gold prices continue to increase, small-scale gold mining activity continues to be one of the major deforestation drivers across the Amazon, often targeting remote areas and impacting carbon-rich primary forests. These mining activities are presumed to be illegal based on their location in conservation areas (such as protected areas and Indigenous territories) and outside […]

In 2023, we published a MAAP report detailing the effectiveness of protected areas and Indigenous territories across the Amazon, which have shown a 3-fold reduction in deforestation rates compared to areas outside these land designations. While the establishment of these areas proves to be effective, some regions continue to remain vulnerable to illegal deforestation activities.  […]

Ten years ago today, Amazon Conservation launched our novel Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program (MAAP), a satellite-based monitoring program that began as a tool to pinpoint the most urgent cases of deforestations and fires and has evolved into a game-changing tool for governments, local people, media, civil society, policymakers, and the general public to […]

Over the past few months, we’ve released a series of MAAP reports (MAAP #215 & MAAP #217) that introduced a critical new dataset (Planet’s Forest Carbon Diligence product) that provides wall-to-wall estimates for aboveground carbon, which has allowed us to highlight the highest (peak) aboveground carbon levels in parts of the Amazon. Our newest report, MAAP […]

In previous reports (MAAP #182, MAAP #219), evidence has shown that mining activities have increased in the Ecuadorian Amazon, drastically affecting protected areas and Indigenous territories. Now, our newest report from MAAP,  MAAP #221, provides an in-depth analysis of four protected areas in the Ecuadorian Amazon that are currently threatened by mining activities. Utilizing high-resolution satellite imagery, this […]

A series of our previous MAAP reports have demonstrated the emergence and expansion of illegal gold mining deforestation in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, particularly in the area surrounding the Punino River, located between the provinces of Napo and Orellana. In our most recent report on this area (MAAP #206), this mining impact had expended into 1,000 hectares (2,471 […]

Our MAAP program specializes in reporting on the most urgent deforestation threats facing the Amazon and producing big-picture analyses of key Amazon-wide issues. However, In our latest report, MAAP #218, we present a unique view into the complicated but critical issue of the deaths of environmental defenders in various parts of Peru’s Amazon, orchestrated by invaders […]

The Amazon biome plays a vital role in stabilizing global climate, having long been one of the largest carbon sinks in the world. Despite this, accurate estimations of this carbon have been a challenge. Still, thanks to new satellite-based technologies providing major advances (most notably NASA’s GEDI mission [see MAAP #213] and, most recently, Planet […]

  Agriculture has become one of the leading causes of deforestation across the Amazon. As MAAP has continued to closely monitor its impacts, a burst of new data and online visualization tools are revealing key land use patterns across the Amazon, particularly regarding the critical topic of agriculture. MAAP #214, merges and analyzes these new […]

In previous MAAP reports, such as MAAP #199, NASA’s GEDI data has helped measure an estimate of above-ground biomass density per hectare (Mg/ha) which can then be converted to aboveground carbon estimates. Despite this advance, these lasers used by NASA, have not yet achieved full coverage in the Amazon, leaving considerable gaps in the data […]