Deforestation In Amazon Research Articles

Contribution of the Amazon protected areas program to forest conservation

Established in 2002, the Amazon Protected Areas Program (ARPA) supports 120 Conservation Units (CUs) in the Brazilian Amazon, covering 62 Mha. Here, we quantified the impact of ARPA support on reducing deforestation and CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2020. We started by examining critical methodological choices, often brushed over in the impact evaluation studies on protected areas (PAs). We then applied a covariate balancing method to control for variation in covariates so as to compare differences in deforestation between Strictly Protected (SP) and Sustainable Use (SU) CUs with and without ARPA support as well as to assess the influence of ARPA investment mechanism on the differential reductions. Next, we estimated total reductions in deforestation and CO2 emissions by using the Adjusted Odds Ratio. We found that ARPA support accounts for additional deforestation reductions of 9 % in SP CUs and 39 % in SU CUs in relation to non-supported CUs. The effects of ARPA investment mechanism were statistically significant for both categories of CUs. CUs plus Indigenous Lands (i.e., PAs) reduced by 21 % (2.0 ± 0.3 Mha) Amazon deforestation between 2008 and 2020. Of this total, ARPA CUs accounts for 264 ± 25 thousand ha, the equivalent of 104 ± 10 Mtons of CO2 emissions. If deforestation continues unabated, PAs will become the last citadels of the Amazon. However, protecting the Amazon only with PAs does not suffice. Additional investments in a comprehensive conservation policy mix are needed along with a monitoring and evaluation strategy to provide evidence on what works for effective and socially equitable forest conservation.

The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation

Approximately 2.5 × 106 square kilometers of the Amazon forest are currently degraded by fire, edge effects, timber extraction, and/or extreme drought, representing 38% of all remaining forests in the region. Carbon emissions from this degradation total up to 0.2 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C year-1), which is equivalent to, if not greater than, the emissions from Amazon deforestation (0.06 to 0.21 Pg C year-1). Amazon forest degradation can reduce dry-season evapotranspiration by up to 34% and cause as much biodiversity loss as deforestation in human-modified landscapes, generating uneven socioeconomic burdens, mainly to forest dwellers. Projections indicate that degradation will remain a dominant source of carbon emissions independent of deforestation rates. Policies to tackle degradation should be integrated with efforts to curb deforestation and complemented with innovative measures addressing the disturbances that degrade the Amazon forest.

Fusing Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Images for Deforestation Detection in the Brazilian Amazon Under Diverse Cloud Conditions

Most current early warning systems for deforestation rely on cloud-free optical images, which are difficult to obtain in tropical regions. The fusion of optical and SAR images is an attractive alternative in these cases. Although less discriminative in cloudless regions, SAR data are nearly unaltered by clouds, allowing better discrimination in cloudy areas than the optical counterpart. This letter proposes solutions that seek the best combination between the two modalities for each pixel as a function of the surrounding cloud cover to maximize classification accuracy. We compared early, joint, and late fusion variants of Fully Convolutional Networks (FCN) to detect deforestation in the Amazon rainforest from Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2 data. Experiments conducted to compare the architecture variants showed that optical-SAR fusion might outperform the single-modal variants for deforestation detection on pixels affected by any cloud cover level. In particular, the joint fusion approach outperformed the single modal counterparts under all cloud cover scenarios.

A Politics Oriented Early Warning System for Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest

A Politics Oriented Early Warning System for Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest

Effects of deforestation at different spatial scales on the climate of the Amazon basin

Deforestation in the Amazon has accelerated in recent years, making it increasingly important to understand the physical processes that occur after forest removal. This study investigates how deforestation at different spatial scales alters the climate in the Amazon. Using the Eta regional climate model, 3 deforestation scenarios were simulated: a scenario with the Amazon basin totally covered by forest (FLOR); a second scenario with projected deforestation for the year 2050 (DF50); and a third scenario in which the Amazon forest is entirely replaced by degraded pasture (DFTOT). The results show that both deforestation scenarios caused a reduction in precipitation (0.10 mm d-1 for DF50 and 0.35 mm d-1 for DFTOT during the wet season), due mainly to reduced evapotranspiration in the forest (0.28 mm d-1 for DF50 and 0.96 mm d-1 for DFTOT during the wet season). Despite the increase in moisture flux convergence, it was not sufficient to increase the precipitation in the region. Deforestation resulted in increased upward motion in the lower troposphere, creating a potentially more convective environment, but not enough to produce more cloudiness and precipitation over the Amazon basin. Regardless of the considered deforestation scenario, significant changes were observed in radiation, energy and water balances, atmospheric conditions, and convective potential across much of the Amazon basin during the dry and wet seasons. However, the most significant impacts occur in scenarios of complete deforestation, indicating a direct relationship between the spatial scale of deforestation and the impact on regional climate.

Can the Political Left Save the Planet? Impact of Leftist Mayors on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Can the Political Left Save the Planet? Impact of Leftist Mayors on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Mind Your Language: Political Discourse Affects Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Mind Your Language: Political Discourse Affects Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Impacto da certificação REDD+ nas taxas de desmatamento da RESEX Rio Preto-Jacundá na Amazônia

Abstract In Brazil, the Amazon’s role in regulating the Earth’s climate, resulting from the conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere into biomass, it is threatened by high rates of deforestation. The impact of a REDD+ Project for forest conservation in the Rio Preto- Jacundá RESEX in Rondônia - RO was evaluated from the comparative analysis between deforestation that occurred before (2004-2012) and after the Project (2012-2020), on a local and regional scale (RO) based on data provided by the Amazon Deforestation Calculation Program (PRODES). The results showed that, from 2015 onwards there is a greater deforestation trend in the RESEX than in the state of RO and that, between 2016 and 2019, all deforestation occurred inside the Project limits. It was concluded that this REDD+ Project without proper regulation and government support has not been able to help to stop deforestation and, consequently, combat the urgent climate crisis that we face.

Impacts of atmospheric CO2 increase and Amazon deforestation on the regional climate: A water budget modelling study

AbstractGlobal air temperature increase has caused changes in the global climate such as droughts, floods and severe events. Land cover shifts and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions can intensify these impacts. Therefore, the application of Specific Warming Level 2 (SWL2) technique has been considered to evaluate the global warming issue in various climate scales, which may induce different responses in the climate system. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impacts of a doubling of current atmospheric CO2 concentrations as well as the influence of deforestation of the Amazon Forest on the climate of South America. In this study, the CPTEC‐BAM1.2 global model was used to simulate these processes. The first scenario of simulations considered doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration (2XCO2 = 776 ppm) and the second scenario is the total conversion of the Amazon Forest to pasture (DEF). In the third scenario both CO2 and deforestation are considered simultaneously (2XCO2 + DEF). A control simulation considers the natural Amazon Forest shape and a steady CO2 concentration of 388 ppm. Results suggest that the temperature increased in all scenarios, the highest increment in the 2XCO2 + DEF experiment (5.4°C in 2XCO2 + DEF, 5.1°C in DEF and 3.2°C in 2XCO2). The model simulated drastic negative rainfall anomalies in each of three scenarios (2XCO2 + DEF: −2.1 mm day−1, 2XCO2: −1.3 mm day−1 and DEF: −0.9 mm day−1). Besides less precipitation and evapotranspiration, shifts in moisture transport were identified in each of the three scenarios. The effect of doubled atmospheric CO2 produces results similar to deforestation for hydrological water budget changes, and total pasture conversion may intensify such changes.

Amazon Rainforest Deforestation and Indigenous People Movement in Preserving Environmental Conservation

Background: The Amazon forest is one of the areas experiencing the largest deforestation in the world and this causes a decrease in environmental quality that occurs in its region, and Brazil is responsible for half of the deforestation in the Amazon because deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon region has the largest percentage compared to other regions. Objective: In line with the formulation of the problem described above, the purpose of writing this paper is to find out why there is a decline in environmental quality and how the role and efforts of Brazilian indigenous people are to protect the environment in the Amazon Forest region. Method: The researchers used qualitative approach here. The data were obtained from various documents, including journals and news from different platforms. The researcher analyzed the data by reading every document thoroughly and concluding the result. Result: The result of the conversion of forest land in the Amazon is that other lands are easier and faster to evict as well when compared to the first time this exploitation activity was carried out in the 1970s to mid-2000s. Large areas of rainforest in the Amazon were eventually filled with livestock, soybean farming, excavation of dams and minerals, as well as clearing of land for urban projection and colonialization projects. Conclusion: From this writing, it can be concluded that the deforestation that occurs in the Amazon Forest is caused by human activities or irresponsible parties who turn the forest into land for personal gain.

Achieving Brazil's Deforestation Target Will Reduce Fire and Deliver Air Quality and Public Health Benefits.

Climate, deforestation, and forest fires are closely coupled in the Amazon, but models of fire that include these interactions are lacking. We trained machine learning models on temperature, rainfall, deforestation, land-use, and fire data to show that spatial and temporal patterns of fire in the Amazon are strongly modified by deforestation. We find that fire count across the Brazilian Amazon increases by 0.44 percentage points for each percentage point increase in deforestation rate. We used the model to predict that the increased deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon from 2013 to 2020 caused a 42% increase in fire counts in 2020. We predict that if Brazil had achieved the deforestation target under the National Policy on Climate Change, there would have been 32% fewer fire counts across the Brazilian Amazon in 2020. Using a regional chemistry-climate model and exposure-response associations, we estimate that the improved air quality due to reduced smoke emission under this scenario would have resulted in 2,300 fewer deaths due to reduced exposure to fine particulate matter. Our analysis demonstrates the air quality and public health benefits that would accrue from reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

The impact of urbanisation on the cardiometabolic health of Indigenous Brazilian peoples: a systematic review and meta-analysis, and data from the Brazilian Health registry

Indigenous Brazilian peoples have faced an unparalleled increase in the rate of cardiovascular diseases following rapid nutritional transition to more urban diets. We aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the association between urbanisation (including data from Amazon rainforest deforestation) and cardiometabolic risk factors and outcomes. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus for articles published in any language between the year 1950 and March 10, 2022. Studies conducted in Indigenous Brazilian adults that evaluated metabolic health were included. Data for deforestation was obtained by the Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Project. Cardiovascular mortality was obtained from the Brazilian Health registry. Two independent reviewers evaluated studies for risk of bias, according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations. The main outcomes assessed were the prevalence of obesity and related cardiometabolic risk factors among Indigenous Brazilian peoples and its association with urbanisation. Summary data were extracted from published reports for the meta-analyses. We calculated pooled estimates of the prevalence of each cardiometabolic outcome by using a random-effects model (DerSimonian-Laird method). This study is registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, CRD42021285480. 46 studies were identified, including a total of 20 574 adults from at least 33 Indigenous Brazilian ethnicities. Meta-analyses of the prevalence of obesity showed that there were higher rates of obesity (midwest region: 23% [95% CI 17-29]; and south region 23% [13-34]) and hypertension (south region: 30% [10-50]) in Indigenous peoples living in urban regions of Brazil, while the lowest rates of obesity (11% [95% CI 8-15]) and hypertension (1% [1-2]) were observed in those in the less urbanised (north) regions of Brazil. The prevalence of obesity was 3·5 times higher in participants living in urbanised Indigenous territories (28%) than in those living in lands with >80% native Amazon rainforest (8%). In meta-analyses that evaluated blood pressure level, there was no incremental change in blood pressure with ageing in Indigenous peoples who lived according to traditional lifestyle, in contrast to those living in urbanised regions. For Indigenous men with traditional lifestyles, systolic blood pressure changed from 109·8 mm Hg to 104·4 mm Hg between the youngest (<30 years) and the oldest (>60 years) age groups, and diastolic blood pressure changed from 69·8 mm Hg to 66·1 mm Hg. For Indigenous women with traditional lifestyles, systolic blood pressure was 100·0 mm Hg for the youngest age group with no changes for older age groups, and diastolic blood pressure was 62 mm Hg for the youngest age group with no changes for older age groups. For Indigenous men with urbanised lifestyles, systolic blood pressure changed from 117·3 mm Hg to 124·9 mm Hg between the youngest and the oldest age groups, and diastolic blood pressure changed from 72·7 mm Hg to 76·4 mm Hg. For Indigenous women with urbanised lifestyles, systolic blood pressure changed from 110·0 mm Hg to 116·0 mm Hg between the youngest and the oldest age groups, and diastolic blood pressure changed from 68·3 mm Hg to 74·0 mm Hg. For the years 1997 and 2019, the cardiovascular mortality rate in individuals living in the southeast region (the most urbanised) was 2·5 times greater than that observed in the north. Conversely, the incremental rise in cardiovascular mortality in the past two decades among Indigenous Brazilians living in the north or northeast (2·7 times increase) stands in stark contrast to the stable rates in those living in already urbanised regions. The macrosocial changes of Indigenous peoples' traditional ways of living consequent to urbanisation are associated with an increased prevalence of adverse cardiometabolic outcomes. These data highlight the urgent need for environmental policies to ensure the conservation of the natural ecosystem within Indigenous territories, as well as the development of socio-health policies to improve the cardiovascular health of Indigenous Brazilians peoples living in urban areas. None.

Does the Selective Erasure of Protected Areas Raise Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?

Previous articleNext article No AccessDoes the Selective Erasure of Protected Areas Raise Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?Derya Keles, Alexander Pfaff, and Michael MasciaDerya Keles Search for more articles by this author , Alexander Pfaff Search for more articles by this author , and Michael Mascia Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Just Accepted Published for the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723543 Views: 37Total views on this site HistoryAccepted November 04, 2022 PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Deforestation and fires in the Brazilian Amazon from 2001 to 2020: Impacts on rainfall variability and land surface temperature

Deforestation and fires in the Amazon are serious problems affecting climate, and land use and land cover (LULC) changes. In recent decades, the Amazon biome area has suffered constant fires and deforestation, causing severe environmental problems that considerably impact the land surface temperature (LST) and hydrological cycle. The Amazon biome lost a large forest area during this period. Thus, this study aims to analyze the deforestation and burned areas in the Amazon from 2001 to 2020, considering their impacts on rainfall variability and LST. This study used methods and procedures based on Google Earth Engine for analysis: (a) LULC evolution mapping, (b) vegetation cover change analysis using vegetation indices, (c) mapping of fires, (d) rainfall and LST analyses, and (e) analysis of climate influence and land cover on hydrological processes using the geographically weighted regression method. The results showed significant LULC changes and the main locations where fires occurred from 2001 to 2020. The years 2007 and 2010 had the most significant areas of fires in the Brazilian Amazon (233,401 km2 and 247,562 km2, respectively). The Pará and Mato Grosso states had the region's largest deforested areas (172,314 km2 and 144,128 km2, respectively). Deforestation accumulated in the 2016–2020 period is the greatest in the period analyzed (254,465 km2), 92% higher than in the 2005–2010 period and 82% higher than in the 2001–2005 period. The study also showed that deforested areas have been increasing in recent decades, and the precipitation decreased, while an increase is observed in the LST. It was also concluded that indigenous protection areas have suffered from anthropic actions.

#SaveTheAmazon: Promoting global competence and making bridges in the middle school music classroom

This article offers an overview of a semester-long general music class unit in an international middle school. Due to international schools’ transient nature, students come from various backgrounds, and many do not have formal musical training. Using samba and popular music as a base for the unit, students developed critical awareness and explored socio-ecological issues in sustainability, resource consumption and environmentally friendly education about the Amazon rainforest. This action research will discuss the teaching strategies used in the classroom to promote student-led learning, problem-solving and collective music-making in times of hybrid learning and physical constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, students studied rhythms and developed musicianship while using popular music repertoire. Subsequently, students investigated the impact of deforestation in the Amazon basin and how it may affect the world. Finally, they learned about activism in art and were encouraged to take action through songwriting and social media, developing critical awareness and global competence.

Understanding deforestation lock-in: Insights from Land Reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon

Cropland and pasture expansion continues to erase natural ecosystems at a staggering speed globally, notably in the tropics. Conventional policy approaches, usually focused on a particular land-use change driver (e.g., specific commodities) or individual regulations (e.g., the Amazon Soy Moratorium), have consistently failed to achieve sufficient or sustained results. The swift reversal of Brazil’s earlier success in reducing Amazon deforestation – now again accelerated – offers perhaps the most sobering illustration of that. Therefore, this article draws from scholarship on sustainability transitions to propose a more comprehensive systems view of unsustainable land-use patterns. We examine persistent tropical deforestation as a case of “lock-in,” using a transitions lens, and explore its constitutive elements. As a case study, we analyze the situation of Land Reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon, where as much as one-third of that biome’s deforestation takes place. While subject to some specific factors, those places are also enmeshed in a broader setting that is common across the Brazilian Amazon’s deforestation frontier (e.g., infrastructure conditions, market demands, and sociocultural norms). Drawing from document analysis of Brazilian policies and fieldwork in three Land Reform settlements in Pará State, we expose multiple forms of techno-economic, institutional, and socio-cognitive lock-in that together drive deforestation systemically in those settlements. These drivers form a strongly consolidated socio-technical regime around large-scale agriculture that includes material and immaterial factors (e.g., cultural ones), a regime that not only resists change but also – like a vortex – pulls others into it. Escaping deforestation lock-in may thus require outside forces to help local actors destabilize and eventually replace this unsustainable land-use regime. International zero-deforestation efforts offer a starting point, but a transition requires moving beyond piecemeal, incremental change or end-of-pipe approaches and toward concerted, strategic action that addresses multiple of those regime elements in a coordinated way to replace it as a system. We argue that understanding deforestation lock-in is vital for tackling its worrisome persistence and that sustainability transitions theory offers an illuminating, but still underutilized, framework to analyze and eventually overcome unsustainable land use.

An economic analysis of a zero-deforestation policy in the Brazilian Amazon

This work aims to evaluate alternatives to conciliate economic growth and the Amazon preservation. For this, we measured the economic costs to preserve the Brazilian Amazon by simulating a zero-deforestation policy. We also evaluate the scenario of deforestation in Brazil in the last decades. We observed a marked growth in deforestation starting in 2014. However, in the last two years, such growth has been even more expressive, which shows the urgency of thinking in multiple ways for the problem of deforestation in the Amazon Biome. Through an economic model for Brazil, we simulated a shock on land use, which shows that there are negative effects on economic dynamism in the Amazon region and that, through a spillover effect, there may be even higher rates of greenhouse gas emissions. This work also shows that the problem of deforestation in the Amazon does not mean only the issue of reducing deforestation rates, but that it must be accompanied by a serious and plural policy aiming to reduce regional inequalities. Finally, a public and private effort is needed so that sustainable practices become more widespread and information about the importance of maintaining the forest standing and conserving the biome can be disseminated.

The effects on deforestation of conditional cash transfers: a study among the Khĩsêtjê Amazonian indigenous people

Smallholders' contribution to Amazonian deforestation is currently increasing. In Indigenous Lands, changes in land uses might be partially due to the unintended effects of anti-poverty strategies, including the Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs), which may promote the conversion of forests to agricultural lands. Despite that, little is known about whether and how CCTs affect long-term deforestation rates. Thus, this study has assessed whether CCTs influenced long-term land-use changes from forests to agriculture, considering alternative time allocation assumptions (i.e., Time Optimisation and Time Budget). Transfers from the Brazilian Bolsa Família Program to the Khĩsêtjê indigenous people of the Amazon were evaluated with two agent-based models. Results suggest CCTs will likely decrease the area deforested in the long term without changing Khĩsêtjê's population size. When market-purchased products replace local products, people's time allocated to agriculture is expected to fall. The intensity of CCT effects on deforestation varied according to time allocation assumptions, highlighting the importance of considering them carefully to improve the predictions from model simulations.

From Extreme Weather Events to ‘Cascading Vulnerabilities’: Participatory Flood Research Methodologies in Brazil During COVID-19

Extreme weather events are entangled with each other and with other extreme events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-racist protests, drought, a housing crisis, strikes, or climate emergencies, as well as with more general inadequacies due to national, economic, and political upheavals and accreted vulnerabilities from long-term policies or inactions. Effects of extreme weather events are intensified by ongoing social injustices like poverty and structural racism, a housing deficit, and the consequent informal and unplanned occupation of hazardous areas, such as riverbanks, and areas of previous social-environmental disasters. In the context of Brazil, the ongoing deforestation in the Amazon (agribusiness, mining and illegal wood) provoking droughts and energy shortages in the region creates further vulnerabilities that are felt globally. In this paper, our primary contribution to these inter-connected scenarios is to describe methodological interventions that were made in response to COVID-19, and to show how those changes provided new insights into vulnerability processes of both subjects and researchers. During a larger project (Waterproofing Data), focused on the case study research areas of São Paulo and Acre (Brazil) wherein our wider team conducted flood-risk community research, we were forced to rethink our approach. We moved away from the singularity of the flood event and its impacts toward acknowledging the cascading conditions of social vulnerability (caused by weather, health, social and political conditions). In this paper, we directly address the ‘cascade of vulnerabilities’ that the flood-prone communities already encounter when researchers seek to engage with them. We open new avenues to reconsider citizenship, space, and innovation in terms of the key challenges that our methods encountered when conducting participatory flood research methodologies, particularly during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to November 2021. Through flood research in Brazil, we articulate methodological contributions from the arts, humanities, and social sciences for more realistic, just, and caring research practices within and about weather in the context of ‘slow violence’ [Nixon, R (2013). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP].

Peak fires in the Amazon worry actions against climate change

Deforestation in the Amazon is (or should be) one of the most important topics in the political debate of the Brazilian elections , this year 2022. The subject increasingly worries the country's public opinion and the international media. In this post, we will analyze the current situation of fires and deforestation in Brazilian biomes, with emphasis on the Amazon, as well as its relationship with the climate change process.