The Amazon biome, stretching over a vast area across nine countries in northern South America, is renowned for its extreme diversity (biological and cultural) and its abundant water resources. Indeed, the major features of the Amazon are linked by interconnected water flows, both on land and in the air (Beveridge et al. 2024). The natural […]
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This is the second in a series of reports detailing the expansion of gold mining in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In the first report (MAAP #227), we analyzed mining expansion in the northern sector, around the Cofán Bermejo Ecological Reserve, near the Colombian border. In this current report, we focus on mining deforestation in the central […]
Continuing our annual series, we present a detailed look at the major 2024 Amazon forest loss hotspots, based on the final annual data recently released by the University of Maryland and featured on Global Forest Watch. As in other reports of the series, we take this global dataset and analyze it for the Amazon specifically. This forest loss […]
Illegal gold mining poses a challenge to environmental sustainability, governance, and security for all nine countries of the Amazon. The high price of gold on the international market has fueled the growth of this activity, combined with other factors such as the scarcity of economic alternatives, the presence of illicit groups, corruption, and a lack […]
In a recent report (MAAP #226), we presented data from Amazon Mining Watch (AMW), a collaboration between Amazon Conservation, Earth Genome, and the Pulitzer Center. This public resource uses AI (artificial intelligence) to detect gold mining deforestation across the Amazon, starting in 2018. The Base Map illustrates the current data, highlighting the most recent mining […]
As gold prices continue to increase, small-scale gold mining activity also continues to be one of the major deforestation drivers across the Amazon. It often targets remote areas, thus impacting carbon-rich primary forests. Moreover, in many cases, we presume that this mining is illegal based on its location within conservation areas (such as protected areas and […]
We continue our ongoing series about carbon in the Amazon. In part 1 (MAAP #215), we introduced a new dataset (Planet’s Forest Carbon Diligence) with wall-to-wall estimates for aboveground carbon at an unprecedented 30-meter resolution between 2013 and 2022. In part 2 (MAAP #217), we highlighted which parts of the Amazon are currently home to the highest (peak) carbon stocks. […]
The Colombian Environment Ministry recently announced that, after the country experienced its lowest deforestation in over 20 years in 2023, forest clearing rose 35% in 2024 (Graph 1). In addition, the Ministry reported an increase in medium-sized clearing, indicating relatively organized and funded operations (Note 1). Over the past 10 years, 60% of the national deforestation […]
In part 1 of this series (MAAP #215), we introduced a critical new dataset (Planet’s Forest Carbon Diligence) with wall-to-wall estimates for aboveground carbon at an unprecedented 30-meter resolution between 2013 and 2022. This data uniquely merges machine learning, satellite imagery, airborne lasers, and a global biomass dataset from GEDI, a NASA mission. In part […]
