Protecting the Amazon Region with AI, Algorithms and Data

The Amazon region, the "lungs of the Earth," is a critical ecosystem to maintain Earth's carbon balance. It extends across Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

Over the last decade, this biome has increasingly faced significant threats from deforestation, wildfires, and land degradation from legal and illicit activities.

Innovative technological solutions are emerging to address these challenges.

By the same authors

Local governments, NGOs, and private companies can support preserving the Amazon region, its people, and its biodiversity by leveraging cutting-edge digital technologies to monitor and manage natural resources.

Fixed and mobile digital solutions can support climate action, mitigate biodiversity loss, optimize nature's role in fostering resilient livelihoods, and generate long-term value across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The study Exploring the Case for Digitalization: Natural Resource Management in the Amazon region, recently published by IDB Invest, highlights how technological initiatives protect the environment and improve lives in the Amazon region.

Below are some successful cases of how digital technologies protect and conserve the Amazon region.

Mapping for Conservation

The Amazon region is densely forested and hardly accessible, which makes collecting accurate and up-to-date data on land use change, biome health, biodiversity density, and deforestation extremely challenging.

Additionally, existing data is frequently fragmented and inaccessible, complicating efforts to monitor and manage natural resources effectively.

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MapBiomas addresses these challenges by creating comprehensive, low-cost maps that support biodiversity and forest conservation and monitor land use transitions, forest losses and gains, water resources, and the impact of urban and agricultural expansion.

The initiative operates in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. It employs satellite imagery, machine learning, and cloud computing to generate annual land use and land cover maps.

MapBiomas' success is based on cooperation with local community leaders and organizations, including Indigenous representatives, who use the data to support their conservation efforts.

Wildfire Control

Wildfires' increasing frequency and severity pose significant threats to the Amazon basin. In 2020, fires consumed 26% of the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, killing millions of vertebrates and emitting vast amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere.

The Embrace the Forest Initiative's Pantera Platform detects fires in remote areas using satellite sensors, high-resolution cameras, and AI algorithms.

GRAPHIC: Different Ways of Protecting the Amazon Region

The platform includes a daily risk map with weather forecasts, occurrence history, and combustible material analysis. It can detect fires in less than three minutes, significantly reducing response times and damages.

In its first six months, the Pantera Platform detected and responded to 323 fire outbreaks in the 13.5 million hectares of land it monitors, preventing the release of an estimated five million tons of CO2.

The technology is tailored to align with cultural practices, ensuring acceptance and effectiveness. Training and education programs are provided to equip communities with skills that complement their firefighting knowledge and culture.

Tracking Growth

Despite Peru's vast forested areas, the country lost 3.86 million hectares of forested coverage between 2001 and 2022. In 2023, nearly a million hectares were still cleared despite a reduction in primary forest loss.

RealTrees, launched in 2022 by Camino Verde and Bext360, uses blockchain, AI, and mobile technology to monitor reforestation efforts on a tree-by-tree basis.

WATCH: What is the Amazonia Finance Network?

(WARNING: Content in Portuguese. For CC in English, click the Settings button, subtitles/auto-translate, and pick the language.)

Discover Latin America's largest financial inclusion program and our exciting expansion plans to drive sustainable development across the Amazon region. Join the conversation with Terence Gallagher, our Director of Financial Inclusion, and Stelio Gama Lyra Jr., CEO of Instituto Nordeste Cidadania, during IDB Invest's Sustainability Week.

The app collects data using GPS, image captures, and machine learning, storing it permanently on a blockchain for precise tree growth and carbon capture tracking, with data accessible via a public platform.

Camino Verde collaborates with local communities, registering trees on agroforestry parcels of over 100 families in five indigenous communities.

The reforested trees help produce non-timber products like essential oils and honey, improving local livelihoods while regenerating forests.

Local Communities

These cases are testaments to the potential synergies between digital and natural assets, the public and private sectors, and civil society's role in upscaling their use.

As local communities get involved with bioeconomy projects to support their livelihood, their best interests are ensuring the long-term conservation of the biome to provide sustained resources.

Therefore, their participation in local decision-making processes and empowering these technologies is critical.Hopefully, the Paris Agreement, the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, and other international commitments will increase businesses' disclosures of nature-related impact and assess their suppliers' impact on nature and biodiversity.

This opens an opportunity for services focusing on nature conservation, monitoring, and bioeconomy as a different layer of services, leveraging public-private partnerships and collaboration with local communities.

Connectivity services are becoming more widespread and accessible throughout the region (including the Amazon).

Nevertheless, to ensure that platforms like Mapbiomas, Pantera Platform, or Realtrees can upscale their impact and outreach, they still need support from Mobile Network Operators, Internet Service Providers, NGOs, and other relevant stakeholders.

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