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 […]

Opinion Pieces

  Friends of the Amazon, We are deeply saddened by the heartbreaking killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many other Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color that yet again expose the systemic racism and violence ingrained in our society. We kneel in solidarity with their families, the protesters, and […]

Put Science and Technology to Work MAAP Reports

Here we present a first look at 2020 deforestation of primary forest in the Colombian Amazon, in relation to the new published annual data for 2019.* This new data confirms that deforestation decreased in 2019 (91,400 hectares) after a peak in 2018 (153,900 hectares). Table 1 shows the recent trend: a major deforestation spike following the 2016 peace agreement (between the Colombian government […]

Amazon Birder’s Bulletin

The Biodiversity Day Contest: “If you could fly, which bird would you be?” By María Elena Gutierrez Most of us living in the city would enjoy the opportunity to spend quarantine in a house in the middle of the forest, closer to nature.  We could appreciate spending the day listening to the birds, smelling the […]

Protect Wild Places MAAP Reports

The Brazilian Amazon fires made international headlines last year. By analyzing an archive of satellite imagery (from Planet Explorer), we made the major discovery that many of the 2019 fires were actually burning recently deforested areas (MAAP #113). In fact, many of the fires were burning areas deforested earlier that same year of 2019. Thus, we may predict 2020 fire locations based […]

Put Science and Technology to Work MAAP Reports

In time for the next fire season, we are relaunching an improved version of our Amazon real-time fire monitoring app, hosted by Google Earth Engine. When fires burn, they emit gases and aerosols.* A new satellite  (Sentinel-5P from the European Space Agency) detects these aerosol emissions.* The major feature of the app is user-friendly and real-time identification of major fires across the […]

Protect Wild Places MAAP Reports

Yasuní National Park, located in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is one of the most biodiverse spots in the world and overlaps ancestral Waorani territory. In the recent MAAP #114, we showed the construction of four new oil drilling platforms (and access road) in the controversial ITT oil block, located in the heart of Yasuní. […]

Protect Wild Places MAAP Reports

We present the second part of our series on Amazon gold mining, with a focus on the Brazil* Specifically, we focus on mining in indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon. Extractive activities, such as gold mining, are constitutionally not permitted on indigenous lands, but the Bolsonaro administration is advancing a bill (PL 191) that would reverse this. The Base Map indicates […]