Every morning, Marcelina Gamarra opens her business of selling wooden cutting boards in the city of Puerto Maldonado and sits down to barter with her clients. However, during the 5-month harvest season in Peru, she focuses almost exclusively on the sustainable harvesting of Brazil nuts. “I collect the nuts from my dad’s concession, going deep […]
The southern Peruvian Amazon (Madre de Dios region), is threatened by illegal mining, logging, and illegal deforestation. In response, an association of forest concessionaires (known as ACOMAT) is implementing a comprehensive monitoring system that links the use of technology (satellites and drones) with legal action. ACOMAT was formed in 2012 and now comprises 15 forestry concessions, covering 440,000 acres (178,000 […]
Our Southwest Amazon Drone Center is training local landowners, forest users, indigenous communities, students, and government officials to use cutting-edge satellite, smartphone, and drone technology to monitor and stop deforestation. We provide local people with the technology, knowledge, legal support, and connections they need to safely and effectively take action. In 2019, we trained and […]
Our bird survey at the Tahuamanu Biological Station is determining the ornithological diversity that the area protects, as well as establishes a baseline for their conservation and the development of birdwatching activities for ecotourists. This project was carried out by creating two field camps for the researchers to cover all of the major habitat types. […]
We have detected 120 major fires this year in the Bolivian Amazon, as of the first of October (see Base Map).* The majority of these fires (54%) occurred in savannas, located in the department of Beni. Another 38% of the major fires were located in forests, mostly in the dry forests of the Chiquitano. We emphasize that 25% of the major fires were located in Protected […]
Illegal logging in the Peruvian Amazon is mainly selective and, until now, difficult to detect through satellite information. In this report, we present the enormous potential of very high resolution satellite imagery (<70 cm) to identify illegal logging. The leading entities that offer this type of data are Planet (Skysat) and Maxar (Worldview). We emphasize that this technique has the […]
Amazon Conservation had successfully developed a computer-based tool that identifies Brazil nut trees using high-resolution satellite imagery and drones in pilot areas covering 300,000 hectares (see blog post here). This year, we adapted our methodology and converted our model into a Google Earth Engine development environment to enable it to be used in a different […]
Traditionally, local communities surrounding Tahuamanu have consumed the eggs of Yellow-spotted river turtles (Podocnemis unifilis, commonly known as peta in Spanish) as an important protein source for their diet. However, with village expansion accelerating demand for these eggs as well as increasing river traffic damaging local basins, these turtles face increased pressures from loss of […]
We have documented 1,650 major fires in the Brazilian Amazon this year, and well over half (60%) have occurred in September.* We have been detecting around 62 major fires a day during September, relative to 18 in August (and 2 in July). Moreover, we flag the major spike in Amazon forest fires, defined here as human-caused fires in standing forest. […]
For the past year, we had been working on legal and technical requirements needed to create the 78,000-acre Porvenir Protected Area in the Pando region of Bolivia, and on creating the necessary framework to support its long-term management and protection. This work paid off; even with the challenges of the pandemic, the municipal government has […]
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