In total, 139 submissions were entered from Brazil and abroad across four categories

June 21, 2022 – The MapBiomas Prize announced on Tuesday (21) the winners of the 4th edition of the MapBiomas Prize. There are six awarded works in four categories: General, Youth, Outstanding Applications in Public Policies, and Outstanding Applications in Business – a novelty of this edition. In total, 139 submissions were received from five countries: Brazil, United States, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal. From Brazil, the submissions came from 22 states and the Federal District.

Trevor Ray Tisler, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), secured first place in the General Category with the work Conservation opportunities and challenges in Brazil’s roadless and railroad-less areas . The researcher analyzed the impact of transportation infrastructure on the conservation of native vegetation across the six biomes of the country. 

The work is one of the articles that originated from Tisler's master's degree, who is currently a doctoral student. Quite emotional upon receiving the news of the award, the American researcher expressed gratitude for the support he received at UFMG. "Brazil invested in me, in my master's degree. I wanted to give something back to this country, as an immigrant here. Having this recognition makes me happy because I know I am rewarding this country, which has little, but has given me a lot," he said. Fernanda Z. Teixeira and Rodrigo A.A. Nóbrega also contributed to the winning research.

The second place in the General Category went to Patricia Guidão Cruz Ruggiero from the University of São Paulo. She presented the work Election cycles affect deforestation within Brazil’s Atlantic Forest . The research, co-authored with Alexander Pfaff, Elizabeth Nichols, Marcos Rosa, and Jean Paul Metzger, showed that deforestation tends to increase in election years.

In the Youth Category, the first place was awarded to Alexandre Bomfim Gurgel do Carmo from the Federal University of São Carlos, with the work Qualitative, Quantitative, and Temporal Analysis of Native Vegetation Cover in the Buffer Zones of Conservation Units in the State of São Paulo.Co-authors include Paulo Guilherme Molin and Felipe Rosafa Gavioli.

In second place in the Youth Category, Bruno Antônio Manzolli from UFMG was awarded for the work Diagnosis of Gold Mining in Brazil.. 

Mariella Butti de Freitas Guilherme won in the Outstanding Applications in Public Policies category with the work Habitat loss estimation to assess terrestrial mammal species extinction risk: an open data framework. The work, conducted by Mariella and other researchers from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) – Luciana Pacca, Paloma Marques Santos, André Chein Alonso, Gerson Buss, Gabriela Ludwig, Leandro Jerusalinsky, and Amely B. Martins – contributes to subsidizing the application of the extinction risk categories of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a fundamental classification for the development of public policies for biodiversity conservation.

In the Outstanding Applications in Public Policies category, two honorable mentions were also awarded: to Lucas Sá Barreto Jordão forMapBiomas and the assessment of extinction risk of Brazilian floraand to Jakeline Bezerra Pinheiro forUtilization of the MapBiomas Alerts platform as the basis for the task force to combat illegal wildfires and deforestation within the Public Prosecutor's Office of the state of Acre.).

In the newcomer category of this year, Business Applications, Renato Kreczkiuski from Klabin was the winner with Environmental compliance using MapBiomas data.Together with Rafael Gomes from Agrotools, the work demonstrates how MapBiomas data layers were included in the Terramatrix platform to optimize the land prospecting process without losing a comprehensive and consistent view of environmental compliance integrated with ESG best practices. 

The public will be able to learn more about the winning works of the 4th Edition of the MapBiomas Prize, held in partnership with the Institute Science Today, at the award ceremony. The event date will be announced soon.

Learn more about the 4th Edition of the MapBiomas Prize: mapbiomas.org/premio