It is increasingly reported that the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, is rapidly approaching a tipping point. As repeatedly highlighted by the late Tom Lovejoy (see Acknowledgements), this tipping point is where parts of the rainforest will convert into drier ecosystems due...

In a series of previous reports, we have documented the extensive recent deforestation from new Mennonite colonies arriving in the Peruvian Amazon (see MAAP #149). However, despite the extensive evidence provided by satellite images, the Mennonites have repeatedly denied this deforestation (see References)....

The Amazon Soy Moratorium has often been credited with significantly reducing soy-related deforestation in the Amazon over the past 15 years. The Moratorium is a voluntary zero-deforestation agreement in which traders agree not to purchase soy grown on land cleared after 2008. However,...

NASA’s GEDI mission uses lasers to provide cutting-edge estimates of aboveground biomass and related carbon on a global scale. Launched in late 2018 and installed on the International Space Station, GEDI’s lasers return an estimate of aboveground biomass density at greater accuracy and...

We present here the first report of a series focused on the Venezuelan Amazon, which covers over 47 million hectares of the northern section of the Amazon biome (above western Brazil). As the Amazon Base Map indicates, Venezuela is a key part to...

It is increasingly reported that the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, is rapidly approaching a tipping point. As repeatedly highlighted by the late Tom Lovejoy (see Acknowledgements), this tipping point is where parts of the rainforest will convert into drier ecosystems due...

We present a first look at the major 2021 Amazon deforestation hotspots.* The Amazon Base Map illustrates several key findings:p We estimate the loss of over 1.9 million hectares (4.8 million acres) of primary forest loss across the nine countries of the Amazon biome...

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 million acres (26.6...

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 450,000 hectares, burned...

For the 100th MAAP report, we present our first large-scale western Amazon analysis: Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and western Brazil (see Base Map). We use the new 2018 data for forest cover loss, generated by the  University of Maryland (Hansen et al 2013)...

MAAP, an initiative of the organization Amazon Conservation, uses cutting-edge satellite technology to monitor deforestation in near real-time in the megadiverse Andean Amazon (Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia). The monitoring is based on 5 satellite systems: Landsat (NASA/USGS), Sentinel (European Space Agency), PeruSAT-1, and the companies Planet and DigitalGlobe. For more information about our...