MAAP #119: Predicting 2020 Brazilian Amazon Fires
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 areas deforested earlier in 2019 (MAAP #113).…
MAAP #118: Real-time Amazon Fire Monitoring App
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…
MAAP #117: New Oil Road Deeper into Yasuni National Park (Ecuador)
YasunĂ 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…
MAAP #116: Amazon Gold Mining, Part 2: Brazil
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…
MAAP Synthesis: 2019 Amazon Deforestation Trends and Hotspots
MAAP, an initiative of Amazon Conservation, specializes in satellite-based, real-time deforestation monitoring of the Amazon. Our geographic focus covers five countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (see Base Map). We found that, since 2001, this vast area lost 65.8…
MAAP #115: Illegal Gold Mining in the Amazon, part 1: Peru
In a new series, we highlight the main illegal gold mining frontiers in the Amazon. Here, in part 1, we focus on Peru. In the upcoming part 2, we will look at Brazil. The Base Map indicates our focus areas…
MAAP #114: Oil Drilling Pushes Deeper into Yasuni National Park
Yasuni National Park, located in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is one of the most biodiverse places in the world and forms part of the ancestral territory of the Waorani (see Base Map). Under the ground of this vast…
MAAP #113: Satellites Reveal what Fueled Brazilian Amazon Fires
As part of our ongoing coverage, we present two key new findings about the Brazilian Amazon fires that captured the world’s attention in August (see our novel satellite-based methodology below). First, we found that many of the fires, covering over…
MAAP #112: Mennonite Colonies – New Deforestation Driver in the Amazon
The Mennonites, a religious (Christian) group often dedicated to organized agriculture, are increasingly inhabiting the western Amazon (Peru and Bolivia). Here, we reveal the recent deforestation of 18,500 acres (7,500 hectares) in three Mennonite colonies (see the Base Map below).…
MAAP #111: Fires in the Bolivian Amazon – Using Google Earth Engine to Monitor
We begin a new series on how to harness the power of the cloud to improve real-time monitoring in the Amazon and beyond. As the amount of data from satellite images has skyrocketed, so have the challenges of research teams…