Experts warn that the Amazon could reach a tipping point as early as this decade if the pace of destruction persists
Between 1985 and 2020, the Amazon lost 52% of its glaciers and 74.6 million hectares of its natural vegetation cover – an area equivalent to the territory of Chile. During the same period, there was a 656% increase in mining, a 130% increase in urban infrastructure, and a 151% increase in agriculture and livestock. These are some of the main conclusions of a groundbreaking mapping project by MapBiomas Amazônia , which was presented in a webinar on September 30th. MapBiomas' Collection 3.0 of Annual Land Cover and Use Maps of the Amazon incorporates the entire biome, from the Andes through the Amazonian plain to the transitions with the Cerrado and the Pantanal.
The temporal mapping of land use and cover in the biome showed that in 1985 only 6% of the Amazon had been converted into anthropic areas, such as pastures, agriculture, mining, or urban areas. By 2020, this percentage had almost tripled, reaching 15% of the entire region. The process varies considerably among countries, with only 1% for Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana, and on the other extreme, 19% in Brazil. Recent studies suggest that the loss of 20-25% of the forest cover in the Amazon could signify the 'tipping point' (point of rupture) for the ecosystem services of the Amazon. If the current trend observed by MapBiomas continues, this tipping point could be reached as early as this decade.
Generated by technicians and specialists from each of the countries that make up the Amazon, using satellite imagery, this third data collection includes new land use classes, such as Mining and Urban Infrastructure, along with maps and data on pressure vectors in forests and other coverages, such as mining concessions, oil blocks, roads, and hydroelectric power plants. The goal is to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the current situation in the Amazon region—both regarding land use changes throughout the Amazon and pressures on its forests and natural ecosystems.
"Reconstructing the history of our Amazon by observing year-by-year changes in its natural coverages, identifying losses of important coverages such as glaciers and forests in general, helps us to build and propose more precise conservation strategies," highlights Beto Ricardo, general coordinator of RAISG. "The MapBiomas Amazon Collection 3.0 shows a deep and rapid anthropization occurring in the region," says Tasso Azevedo, general coordinator of MapBiomas. "In the current mappings of MapBiomas throughout South America, this is a striking pattern. The data are invaluable for understanding the dynamics of natural resource use in the region, as well as contributing to climate modeling and calculating greenhouse gas emissions and removals due to land use changes in the region," he adds.
ABOUT MAPBIOMAS AMAZÔNIA
MapBiomas Amazonia is an initiative led by the Amazon Socio-Environmental Georeferenced Information Network (RAISG) with the support of MapBiomas. In 2019, it launched the First Collection, covering the period from 2000 to 2017; in 2020, the Second Collection, which covers 1985-2018. Now, after intense work by RAISG members and technical collaboration from the MapBiomas Brazil team, the Third Collection covers the 36 years between 1985 and 2020: http://amazonia.mapbiomas.org
The land use mapping tool was developed by MapBiomas initially for application in Brazil. For the entirety of the Amazon biome, it was enhanced with the contribution of member organizations of RAISG to tailor the results and analyses to the geography of each of the countries. In particular, it was necessary to consider the typical altitudinal variations of the Andean Amazon. Currently, the MapBiomas mapping tool includes 28 classes, ranging from Andean glaciers to forest formations in the Amazon plains.
ABOUT RAISG
RAISG, the Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information, is a consortium of civil society organizations from Amazonian countries focused on the socio-environmental sustainability of the Amazon, with support from international cooperation. RAISG generates and disseminates knowledge, statistical data, and geospatial socio-environmental information of the Amazon, developed with common protocols for all countries in the region; it has made it possible to visualize the Amazon as a whole, as well as the threats and pressures it faces. RAISG is the result of cooperation among eight civil society organizations operating in six Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. https://www.amazoniasocioambiental.org/pt-br/
ABOUT MAPBIOMAS
MapBiomas is a multi-institutional initiative that brings together universities, NGOs, and technology companies that have joined forces to contribute to the understanding of the transformations of the Brazilian territory through annual mapping of land use and land cover in Brazil. In August 2021, MapBiomas Collection 6 was published with maps of land cover and land use in Brazil from 1985 to 2020. The tool developed by MapBiomas for all its initiatives provides information generated with a spatial resolution of 30 meters. The data are processed using automatic classification algorithms through information in the Google Earth Engine cloud.
Access the main highlights of the Pan-Amazon: Spanish and Portuguese.
Watch the event presenting the data.