Geomaticians

Tracking Land Use And Deforestation In The Amazon

Scientists monitoring the region via satellite found that between 2000 and 2021, the average deforestation rate in nonprotected areas was about 14 times higher than in protected areas and Indigenous lands. The research contributes to an ongoing conversation about conservation of the Amazon, said study lead author Yuanwei Qin, a research scientist at the University of Oklahoma. Qin and his colleagues combined high- and low-resolution satellite imagery, annual forest cover data from the MapBiomas project, and other forest maps. The maps and imagery showed that in 2021, more than half of forests in Brazil’s Legal Amazon were located inside Indigenous lands or protected areas. The research also showed that these areas accounted for very little deforestation: just 12% of gross loss and 5% of net loss. The discrepancy between those percentages indicates that some loss was recovered, which scientists mostly attribute to regrown or secondary forests.