- Maps were once a symbol
of adventure and exploration,
but now they're just used for directions.
- Turn left, left, left...
- What if maps could do more, like take on
one of the world's biggest problems—climate change?
- The Amazon is a massive machine
that pumps carbon from the atmosphere.
The Amazon alone could be capturing
about 600 million tons CO2 equivalent per year.
- But the Amazon is in a delicate place—
and in the first half of this year, it lost an area
that's five times the size of New York City.
Because of fires, illegal deforestation,
mining and other land uses, the Amazon is inching
closer to a point of no return.
- If we take out the Amazon from the globe
it's like no way we can get to the Paris Agreement.
We have this tragedy where the interests of very few people
is creating a problem for everybody else.
- This group of scientists
and NGOs are using satellite imagery
to track how the Amazon is changing,
and report illegal activity to authorities in Brazil.
- This is a paradigm shift that we are seeking.
Right now, impunity prevails, but we have to change that.
- What MapBiomas is doing is to understand
what we are doing to the planet, so we can care.
- Now we understand the potential of the technology,
we have to change this future.
- The main threat to the Amazon is by far deforestation.
Now, we have about 20% of the Amazon has been clear-cut.
Of all the area that has been clear-cut since '85 to 2020,
we find out that 74%, today, are pasture land.
- Brazil is one of the largest
exporters of beef in the world.
And as of 2021, that's a $9 billion market.
- The Amazon now is being changed into pasture lands.
It creates a completely different type of environment
that eventually may make the Amazon region to collapse
as an ecosystem that we know.
- MapBiomas helps to understand
the negative impact of land use in Brazil.
The initial goal when MapBiomas was created
was to fill the gap of information.
- Before MapBiomas, maps of Brazil
were provided by the government,
and took years to make.
So the maps that were available
to the public were outdated.
- So we put this question,
'How can we do annual maps
going backwards as far as we can?'
- In addition to tracking deforestation,
MapBiomas has developed products
that can map land impacted by fires,
how and where surface water is receding—
even soil health and biodiversity.
- What we do actually is we break down Brazil
in 9.6 billion pixels.
Each one has 30 by 30 meters.
And each one of those squares,
our challenge is to tell: 'What is that?'
- Using Google Earth Engine,
MapBiomas has a set of algorithms,
which identify whether a pixel is agriculture,
water, or pasture—
along with 22 other classifications.
These pixels are then analyzed
by a network of scientists and experts at MapBiomas.
- MapBiomas brings together technology and people.
If you just have the technology,
or just have the people, things will not work.
People with different expertise
is what allow us to use, in a creative way,
the technologies that are available.
- Here are the alerts that have been consolidated by biome.
- MapBiomas Alert is an initiative
that was done on demand
by people that were using information
on deforestation in Brazil.
- Basically, what we do is we validate
all deforestation alerts in Brazil,
in high-resolution image.
And after they are validated,
they are published in one single open and public platform.
- All data generated by MapBiomas Alerts
are available openly to the public,
and custom reports are produced automatically
to different public agencies.
This allows the monitoring
of legal and authorized activities,
and of the fighting of illegal deforestation.
- You have an image before and after,
which make it very clear
where you have the deforestation.
In the last three years, 98.9% of the deforestation
in the Amazon has at least one evidence of illegality.
We have to push the boundaries to guarantee
that all the reports will have a consequence.
- The MapBiomas alert system
is used by 168 institutions,
including environmental agencies,
banks, traders, and consumers,
to avoid doing business with an illegally deforested site.
It's also used by the Federal Prosecutor's Office
to turn alerts into action.
So far, they've filed more than 4,500 environmental cases
using MapBiomas's data.
- Amazônia Protege is a new project of the Federal Public Ministry.
of the Federal Public Ministry
because it seeks precisely to punish the offenders
without the need to go into the field.
- It's very dangerous to do ground verification
for illegal deforestation.
People can get hurt.
Their vehicles can be apprehended,
destroyed, burned.
Even helicopters have been shot with guns—
so satellite imagery reduced this risk.
- When we have a system
that depends on going to the field,
most people will not be visited.
They will not be punished.
When, on the other hand, one can use
the satellite image and punish everyone.
- Satellite data, it's transparent.
It reduced the cost, and it can
speed up the process to enforce the law.
The most significant impact that MapBiomas can have
in the short term, is to put this electronic
law enforcement system in place in Brazil.
- We just want this to be actionable,
to actually manage better the natural environment.
There is tons of applications.
It goes all the way from monitoring Indigenous lands
to the relationship between gold mining
and the contamination of the water.
These are examples of how it's being used.
The way we do it is that we make it as open as possible.
All data, everything that is produced by MapBiomas,
is available on the internet to anyone to use.
- The work isn't contained to Brazil.
MapBiomas works with a network of local organizations
around the world to expand its impact.
- MapBiomas is now on 14 countries,
which includes all countries
in South America, plus Indonesia.
It's really share science for everyone.
I think if something like MapBiomas was spread out
all over the planet, we will have
a much better understanding of the dynamics
of how the land is changing,
and thus allowing us to take better decisions
to sustainably manage our natural resource.
If there is one of the largest economies in the world
that could actually neutralize its emission, it's Brazil.
So that's the difference between protecting the Amazon,
and not protecting the Amazon.
If we can unlock this potential, and use this potential,
Brazil could be the leadership, the example
of how can we actually treat better our natural resources—
and by doing that, fighting climate change.