In recent years, the Amazon rainforest has been cut down at a record high rate, but now Brazil’s new president, Lula da Silva, wants to draw up a recovery plan for the forest. One of the tools for this to succeed has been developed at Stockholm University. Using satellite imagery, illegal activity can be tracked while it is in progress, allowing the police to act quickly.
– It shows where logging took place during a particular week or two weeks ago or where deforestation is taking place. And it shows who is behind it, says Ana Paula Aguiar who is a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center.
Data from satellites is continuously processed and analyzed and helps the special police IBAMA quickly find where illegal land use, felling or mining is taking place. The previous president severely cut police resources, leading to increased violence as illegal activity in the Amazon has been able to continue more or less undisturbed.
Watch what it looks like when Brazil’s special environmental police, IBAMA, crack down on suspected illegal miners in the player above.