In December 2017, the Peruvian Congress approved a bill that declared it in the national interest to construct new roads in the border zone of Ucayali region, which shares a remote border with Brazil. The main proposed road in this border area would cover 172 miles and connect the towns of Puerto Esperanza and Iñapari, in the Ucayali […]
Pope Francis, as part of his upcoming visit to Peru in January, will visit the Madre de Dios region in the southern Peruvian Amazon. He is expected to address issues facing the Amazon and its indigenous communities, including deforestation. In this article, we show that Madre de Dios is experiencing a deforestation crisis, due mainly to […]
Since its launch in April 2015, MAAP has published over 70 reports related to deforestation (and natural forest loss) in the Andean Amazon. We have thus far focused on Peru, with several reports in Colombia and Brazil as well. These reports are meant to be case studies of the most important and urgent deforestation events. We often use forest loss alerts (known […]
In addition to the human-caused deforestation emphasized in MAAP, there is also natural Amazonian forest loss. The causes include meandering rivers, wind storms (see MAAP #70), and the subject of this report: landslides. Amazon landslides may be caused by heavy rains in rugged areas. Many landslides occur in protected areas, which often include steep and unstable […]
MAAP usually focuses on deforestation in the Andean Amazon region, but has a larger interest in tropical forests in general. Thus, we present this analysis in that larger framework. The New York Times recently reported that Hurricane Maria “obliterated” the United States’ only national tropical rain forest as the powerful Category 4 hurricane (with 150 mph winds) passed […]
In a series of previous reports (MAAP # 60), we have described the dire gold mining deforestation in the southern Peruvian Amazon, most notably in the area known as “La Pampa” (see Base Map). However, over the past 3 years another critical area has emerged in the region: the Upper Malinowski. This area is located near […]
In an earlier series of articles (MAAP #6, MAAP #44, MAAP #64), we showed the illegal gold mining invasion of a section of Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (see yellow box in Base Map), as well as the rapid response by authorities to remove the miners. It was an important case given that Amarakaeri is an important Peruvian protected area, co-managed byPeru’s protected areas agency […]
In an earlier report, MAAP #54, we described the natural phenomenon of “hurricane winds” in the Peruvian Amazon. These strong wind storms (not true hurricanes) cause a chain reaction of fallen trees and may blow down hundreds of acres of Amazonian forest (see Drone Image below). This report presents an analysis of the frequency and intensity of hurricane […]
Thanks to early warning forest loss alerts (known as GLAD), we recently detected several alarming new deforestation patterns within remote, primary forest of the central Peruvian Amazon. They appear to be related to medium or large-scale agricultural activities due to their distinct characteristics: straight access paths extending from secondary roads built deep into primary forest, and […]
In a previous report, MAAP #65, we presented information about deforestation hotspots in 2017 in the Peruvian Amazon, based on early warning alert data from January until mid-July. Between July and August, the amount of alerts greatly increased, likely due to arrival of the dry season. Thus, this report includes new updated data until mid-August.* We find new deforestation […]
