Western Amazon Newsletter

The past few months we’ve featured “Camera Trap Tuesday” on our social media pages, posting glimpses of Amazon animals living their daily lives, freely interacting with each other and their environment when there’s no human presence. But what is the real impact of camera traps? Our camera traps and wildlife conservation expert Nelly Guerra talks […]

Protect Wild Places

Rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora) is a unique type of tropical hardwood, noted for the dark red color that stains its inner trunk and a sweet smell that gets processed into Rosewood essential oil, which is a major ingredient of high quality perfumes and cosmetic products. The oil is obtained from tree trunks through steam distillation from […]

Put Science and Technology to Work MAAP Reports

Newly released data for 2019 reveals the loss of over 1.7 million hectares (4.3 million acres) of primary Amazon forest in our 5 country study area (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru).* That is twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. Table 1 shows 2019 deforestation (red) in relation to 2018 (orange). Primary forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon (1.29 million hectares) […]

Protect Wild Places MAAP Reports

As presented in MAAP #118, Amazon Conservation launched a real-time fire monitoring app that specializes in the rapid and user-friendly detection and visualization of major Amazon fires. In a novel approach, the app combines data from the atmosphere (aerosol emissions in smoke) and the ground (heat anomalies) to effectively monitor large Amazon fires. As detailed below, the app just […]

Put Science and Technology to Work MAAP Reports

Thanks to the support of the USAID, via the Prevent Project, dedicated to the prevention and combat of environmental crimes in the Amazon, we conducted a detailed analysis of recent illegal gold mining deforestation in the southern Peruvian Amazon. The objective is to understand the trends from early 2017 to June 2020 (which includes the first part of the mandatory quarantine […]

Put Science and Technology to Work MAAP Reports

Fire Alert vs. Aerosol Emission Data Images 1 and 2 shows us how aerosol emission data allows users to prioritize hundreds (or thousands) of heat-based fire alerts. In other words, the aerosol data indicates just the fires that are  actually burning lots of biomass and putting out abundant smoke.

Protect Wild Places MAAP Reports

As presented in MAAP #118, Amazon Conservation launched a real-time fire monitoring app that specializes in detection of elevated aerosol emissions in the smoke coming from burning Amazon fires. As detailed below, the app just detected the fourth major Amazon fire of 2020 on June 17. All four fires thus far have been in the state of Mato Grosso and […]

Protect Wild Places Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC, June 5 – Amazon Conservation revealed in a new report the ability to predict the exact location of major 2020 fires in the Brazilian Amazon, using deforestation data. The fires in the Brazilian Amazon made international headlines last year. Through analysis of satellite imagery archives, Amazon Conservation made the significant discovery that many fires […]

Protect Wild Places Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC, June 10 – Amazon Conservation today announced the launch of a new real-time fire monitoring app, hosted by Google Earth Engine, in anticipation of the 2020 fire season. The app specializes in providing real-time detection and prediction of large fires across the Amazon basin to help prioritize containment efforts by key actors on […]

Protect Wild Places MAAP Reports

As presented in MAAP #118, Amazon Conservation launched a real-time fire monitoring app that specializes in detection of elevated aerosol emissions from burning Amazon fires. As detailed below, the app detected the second major 2020 fire on June 8, 2020 in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Step 1. Detection of elevated emissions in the southeastern Brazilian Amazon (Mato Grosso). Step 2. Zoom […]